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![[APH][MAD]Deutschland](http://web.archive.org./web/20121202220551im_/http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Lf5qvdyqCsE/default.jpg "song: Deutschland by Die Prinzen MAD made by: siriuss, shammy1000(illus.), 海司92859 English translation from SkadiPirate, Thank you!~")
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24 Hours of Le Mans
The 24 Hours of Le Mans (French: 24 Heures du Mans) is the world's oldest active sports car race in endurance racing, held annually since 1923 near the town of Le Mans, France. Commonly known as the Grand Prix of Endurance and Efficiency, race teams have to balance speed against the cars' ability to run for 24 hours without sustaining mechanical damage to the car and manage the cars' consumables, primarily fuel, tyres and braking materials. The endurance of the drivers is likewise tested as drivers frequently spend stints of over two hours behind the wheel before stopping in the pits and allowing a relief driver to take over the driving duties. Drivers then grab what food and rest they can before returning to drive another stint. Today it is mandated that three drivers share each competing vehicle.
The race is organised by the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) and runs on the Circuit de la Sarthe, a circuit containing a mix of closed public roads and specialist motor racing circuit that are meant not only to test a car and driver's ability to be quick, but also to last over a 24 hour period. The competing teams will race in groups called classes for cars of similar specification while at the same time competing for outright placing amongst all of the classes. Originally the race was held for cars as they were sold to the general public which were then called Sports Cars compared to the specialist racing cars used in Grands Prix. Over time the competing vehicles evolved away from their publicly-available road car roots and today the race is made of two classes specialised enclosed-bodywork two-seat Prototype sports cars and two classes of Grand Touring cars which bear much closer resemblance to high performance sports cars as sold to the public.
wn.com/24_Hours_of_Le_Mans -
Abkhazia
Abkhazia (Abkhaz: Аҧсны́ Apsny, IPA /apʰsˈnɨ/; Georgian: აფხაზეთი Apkhazeti; Russian: Абхазия Abkhaziya) is a disputed territory on the eastern coast of the Black Sea and the south-western flank of the Caucasus.
Abkhazia considers itself an independent state, called the Republic of Abkhazia or Apsny. This status is recognised by Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Nauru, Tuvalu and Vanuatu and also by the partially recognised states of South Ossetia, Transnistria and Nagorno-Karabakh.
The Georgian government and the majority of the world's governments consider Abkhazia a part of Georgia's territory. Under Georgia's official designation it is an autonomous republic, called the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia, whose government sits in exile in Tbilisi. On 28 August 2008, the Parliament of Georgia passed a resolution declaring Abkhazia a "Russian-occupied territory".
The status of Abkhazia is a central issue of the Georgian–Abkhazian conflict. The wider region formed part of the Soviet Union until 1991. As the Soviet Union began to disintegrate towards the end of the 1980s, ethnic tensions grew between Abkhaz and Georgians over Georgia's moves towards independence. This led to the 1992–1993 War in Abkhazia that resulted in a Georgian military defeat, de facto independence of Abkhazia and the mass exodus and ethnic cleansing of the Georgian population from Abkhazia. In spite of the 1994 ceasefire agreement and years of negotiations, the status dispute has not been resolved, and despite the long-term presence of a United Nations monitoring force and a Russian-dominated Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) peacekeeping operation, the conflict has flared up on several occasions. In August 2008, the sides again fought during the South Ossetia War, which was followed by the formal recognition of Abkhazia by Russia, the annulment of the 1994 cease fire agreement and the termination of the UN and CIS missions.[citation needed]
wn.com/Abkhazia -
Afghanistan
Afghanistan
i/æfˈɡænɨstæn/ (Persian/Pashto: افغانستان, Afġānistān), officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming part of South Asia, Central Asia, and Greater Middle East, it is also considered to be part of a broader West Asia. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of 647,500 km2 (250,001 sq mi), making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world. It is bordered by Pakistan in the south and the east, Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in the north, and China in the far northeast.
Afghanistan has been an ancient focal point of the Silk Road and human migration. Archaeologists have found evidence of human habitation from as far back as 50,000 BC. Urban civilization may have begun in the area as early as 3,000 to 2,000 BC. Sitting at an important geostrategic location that connects the Middle East with Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent, the land has been home to various peoples through the ages and witnessed many military campaigns, notably by Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, and in modern era Western forces. The land also served as a source from which the Greco-Bactrians, Kushans, Saffarids, Ghaznavids, Ghorids, Timurids, Mughals and many others have risen to form major empires.
wn.com/Afghanistan -
Albania
Albania (i/ælˈbeɪniə/ al-BAY-nee-ə, Albanian: Shqipëri/Shqipëria; Gheg Albanian: Shqipnia), officially known as the Republic of Albania (Albanian: Republika e Shqipërisë pronounced Albanian pronunciation: [ɾɛpuˈblika ɛ ʃcipəˈɾiːs]), is a country in Southern Europe. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the west, and on the Ionian Sea to the southwest. It is less than 72 km (45 mi) from Italy, across the Strait of Otranto which links the Adriatic Sea to the Ionian Sea.
Albania is a member of the UN, NATO, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Council of Europe, World Trade Organisation, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and one of the founding members of the Union for the Mediterranean. Albania has been a potential candidate for accession to the European Union since January 2003, and it formally applied for EU membership on 28 April 2009.
wn.com/Albania -
Algeria
Coordinates: 28°N 2°E / 28°N 2°E / 28; 2
Algeriai/ælˈdʒɪəriə/ (Arabic: الجزائر, al-Jazā'ir; Berber: ⴷⵣⴰⵢⴻⵔ Dzayer), officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria (الجمهورية الجزائرية الديمقراطية الشعبية, al-Jumhūriyyah al-Jazāʾiriyyah ad-Dīmuqrāṭiyyah ash-Shaʿbiyyah), also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a large country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.
When referring to its land area, Algeria is the largest country in Africa, Maghreb and the Arab World. It is also the largest of the countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea; it is also the tenth-largest country in the world. The country is bordered in the northeast by Tunisia, in the east by Libya, in the west by Morocco, in the southwest by Western Sahara, Mauritania, and Mali, in the southeast by Niger, and in the north by the Mediterranean Sea. Its size is almost 2,400,000 square kilometres (926,645 sq mi) with an estimated population of 37.1 million as of 2012. Algeria is a member of the African Union, the Arab League, OPEC and the United Nations. The country is also a founding member of the Arab Maghreb Union.
wn.com/Algeria -
Allianz
Allianz (help·info) SE (formerly Allianz AG) is a German multinational financial services company headquartered in Munich, Germany. Its core business and focus is insurance. As of 2010, it was the world's 12th-largest financial services group and 23rd-largest company according to a composite measure by Forbes magazine.
Its Allianz Global Investors division ranks as a top-five global active investment manager, having €1,443 billion of assets under management (AuM), of which €1,131 billion are third-party assets (as of 2010-09-30), with specialized asset managers such as PIMCO (Bond fund), RCM (Equity fund), Degi (Real estate fund), etc.
Allianz sold Dresdner Bank to Commerzbank in November 2008. As a result of this merger, Allianz gained a 14% controlling stake in the new Commerzbank Group.
Allianz AG was founded in Berlin on 5 February 1890 by Carl von Thieme (a native of Erfurt, whose father was the director of Thuringia) and Wilhelm von Finck (co-owner of the Merck Finck & Co bank).
Allianz shifted its headquarters to Munich in 1949. The first step to become an international company started with the opening of a branch office in London in the late 19th century. After World War II, global business activities were gradually resumed. Allianz opened an office in Paris in the late 1950s, and a management office for Italy in the 1960s. These expansions were followed in the 1970s by the establishment of business in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Spain, Brazil and the United States. In 1986, Allianz acquired Cornhill Insurance PLC, London, and the purchase of a stake in Riunione Adriatica di Sicurità (RAS), Milan, strengthened its presence in Western and Southern Europe in the 1980s. Recently, on February 8, 2006, RAS Shareholders approved the mergers with Allianz.
wn.com/Allianz -
Andorra
Andorra (i/ænˈdɔrə/; Catalan pronunciation: [ənˈdorə], locally: [anˈdɔra]), officially the Principality of Andorra (Catalan: Principat d'Andorra), also called the Principality of the Valleys of Andorra, (Catalan: Principat de les Valls d'Andorra), is a small landlocked country in southwestern Europe, located in the eastern Pyrenees mountains and bordered by Spain and France. It is the sixth smallest nation in Europe having an area of 468 km2 (181 sq mi) and an estimated population of 84,082 in 2009. Its capital, Andorra la Vella, is the highest capital city in Europe, at an elevation of 1,023 metres (3,356 ft) above sea level. The official language is Catalan, although Spanish, Portuguese, and French are also commonly spoken.
The Principality was formed in 1278. The role of monarch is exercised jointly by the two co-princes, the Catalan Bishop of Urgell and the President of France (the whole state is a part of Diocese of Urgell).
Andorra is a prosperous country mainly because of its tourism industry, which services an estimated 10.2 million visitors annually, and also because of its status as a tax haven. It is not a member of the European Union, but the euro is the de facto currency. The people of Andorra have the 4th highest human life expectancy in the world — 82 years at birth.
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Argentina
Argentinai/ˌɑrdʒənˈtiːnə/, officially the Argentine Republic (Spanish: República Argentina [reˈpuβlika aɾxenˈtina]), is a country in South America, the continent's second largest by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires. It is the eighth-largest country in the world by land area and the largest among Spanish-speaking nations.
Argentina's continental area is between the Andes mountain range in the west and the Atlantic Ocean in the east. It borders Paraguay and Bolivia to the north, Brazil and Uruguay to the northeast, and Chile to the west and south. Argentine claims over Antarctica, as well as overlapping claims made by Chile and the United Kingdom, are suspended by the Antarctic Treaty of 1961. Argentina also claims the Falkland Islands (Spanish: Islas Malvinas) and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, which are administered by the United Kingdom as British Overseas Territories.
A recognised middle power, Argentina is Latin America's third-largest economy, with a "very high" rating on the Human development index. Within Latin America, Argentina has the fifth highest nominal GDP per capita and the highest in purchasing power terms. Analysts have argued that the country has a "foundation for future growth due to its market size, levels of foreign direct investment, and percentage of high-tech exports as share of total manufactured goods", and it is classed by investors as middle emerging economy. Argentina is a founding member of the United Nations, Mercosur, the Union of South American Nations, the Organization of Ibero-American States, the World Bank Group and the World Trade Organization, and is one of the G-15 and G-20 major economies.
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Armenia
Armeniai/ɑrˈmiːniə/ (Armenian: Հայաստան Hayastan [hɑjɑsˈtɑn]), officially the Republic of Armenia (Հայաստանի Հանրապետություն, Hayastani Hanrapetut’yun, [hɑjɑstɑˈni hɑnɾɑpɛtuˈtʰjun]), is a landlocked, mountainous country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia to the north, the de facto independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and Azerbaijan to the east, and Iran and the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan to the south.
A former republic of the Soviet Union, Armenia is a unitary, multiparty, democratic nation-state with an ancient and historic cultural heritage. The Kingdom of Armenia became the first state in the world to adopt Christianity as its religion, in the early years of the 4th century (the traditional date is 301 AD). The modern Republic of Armenia recognizes the Armenian Apostolic Church, the world's oldest national church, as the country's primary religious establishment. Armenians have their own unique alphabet invented by Mesrob Mashtots in 406 AD.
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Australia
Australia ( /əˈstreɪljə/), officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent as well as the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area. Neighbouring countries include Indonesia, East Timor and Papua New Guinea to the north; the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia to the north-east; and New Zealand to the south-east.
For at least 40,000 years before European settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who belonged to one or more of roughly 250 language groups. After discovery by Dutch explorers in 1606, Australia's eastern half was claimed by Great Britain in 1770 and settled through penal transportation to the colony of New South Wales from 26 January 1788. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades; the continent was explored and an additional five self-governing Crown Colonies were established.
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Austria
Austria (i/ˈɒstriə/ or /ˈɔːstriə/; German: Österreich [ˈøːstɐˌʁaɪç] (
listen)), officially the Republic of Austria (German: Republik Österreich (help·info)), is a landlocked country of roughly 8.47 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The territory of Austria covers 83,855 square kilometres (32,377 sq mi) and has a temperate and alpine climate. Austria's terrain is highly mountainous due to the presence of the Alps; only 32% of the country is below 500 metres (1,640 ft), and its highest point is 3,798 metres (12,461 ft). The majority of the population speak local Austro-Bavarian dialects of German as their native language, and German in its standard form is the country's official language. Other local official languages are Burgenland Croatian, Hungarian and Slovene.
The origins of modern-day Austria date back to the time of the Habsburg dynasty when the vast majority of the country was a part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Austria became one of the great powers of Europe and, in response to the coronation of Napoleon I as the Emperor of the French, the Austrian Empire was officially proclaimed in 1804. In 1867, the Austrian Empire was reformed into Austria-Hungary.
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Austrian Empire
The Austrian Empire (German: Kaiserthum Oesterreich, modern spelling Kaisertum Österreich) was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire as a result of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867. The Austro-Hungarian Empire (1867 to 1918) was itself dissolved by the victors at the end of World War I and broken into separate new states.
The term "Austrian Empire" is also used for the Habsburg possessions before 1804, which had no official collective name, although Austria is more frequent; the term of Austria-Hungary has also been used.[citation needed]
The Austrian Empire was founded by the Habsburg monarch Holy Roman Emperor Francis II (who became Emperor Francis I of Austria), as a state comprising his personal lands within and outside of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.
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Austro-Prussian War
The Austro-Prussian War or Seven Weeks' War (in Germany also known as German War, Seven Weeks War, Unification War, German–German War, German Civil War or Fraternal War) was a war fought in 1866 between the German Confederation under the leadership of the Austrian Empire and its German allies on one side and the Kingdom of Prussia with its German allies and Italy on the other, that resulted in Prussian dominance over the German states. In the Italian unification process, this is called the Third Independence War.
The major result of the war was a shift in power among the German states away from Austrian and towards Prussian hegemony, and impetus towards the unification of all of the northern German states in a Kleindeutschland that excluded Austria. It saw the abolition of the German Confederation and its partial replacement by a North German Confederation that excluded Austria and the South German states. The war also resulted in the Italian annexation of the Austrian province of Venetia.
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Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan (
i/ˌæzərbaɪˈdʒɑːn/ AZ-ər-by-JAHN; Azerbaijani: Azərbaycan), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan (Azerbaijani: Azərbaycan Respublikası) is the largest country in the Caucasus region located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to the south. The exclave of Nakhchivan is bounded by Armenia to the north and east, Iran to the south and west, while having a short borderline with Turkey to the northwest.
Azerbaijan has an ancient and historic cultural heritage. Aside from having been the first Muslim-majority country to have operas, theater and plays, Azerbaijan today is among the Muslim-majority countries where support for secularism and tolerance is the highest. The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, the first democratic and secular republic in the Muslim world, was established in 1918, but was incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1920. Azerbaijan regained independence in 1991. Shortly thereafter, during the Nagorno-Karabakh War, neighboring Armenia occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, its surrounding territories and the enclaves of Karki, Yukhary Askipara, Barkhudarly and Sofulu. The Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, which emerged in Nagorno-Karabakh, continues to be not diplomatically recognized by any nation and the region is still considered a de jure part of Azerbaijan, despite being de facto independent since the end of the war. Azerbaijan has come under repeated international criticism for its record on human rights.
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Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg (German pronunciation: [ˈbaːdən ˈvʏɐ̯təmˌbɛɐ̯k]) is one of the 16 states of Germany. Baden-Württemberg is in the southwestern part of the country to the east of the Upper Rhine, and is the third largest in both area and population of Germany's sixteen states, with an area of 35,742 square kilometres (13,800 sq mi) and 10.7 million inhabitants. The state capital is Stuttgart.
The sobriquet Ländle (dialect form for "small land") is sometimes used as a synonym for the Swabian part of Baden-Württemberg.[citation needed]
The area used to be covered by the historical states of Baden, including the former Prussian Hohenzollern, and Württemberg, part of the region of Swabia.
Württemberg was occupied by the Romans in the first century AD who defended their position there by constructing a (limes) rampart. Early on in the third century, the Alemanni drove the Romans beyond the Rhine and the Danube, but in their turn they succumbed to the Franks under Clovis I, the decisive battle taking place in 496. It later became part of the Holy Roman Empire.
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Battle of Stalingrad
Coordinates: 48°42′N 44°31′E / 48.7°N 44.517°E / 48.7; 44.517
The Battle of Stalingrad was a major and decisive battle of World War II in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) in southwestern Russia. The battle took place between 23 August 1942 to 2 February 1943 and was the largest battle on the Eastern Front, marked by brutality and disregard for military and civilian casualties. It is among the bloodiest battles in the history of warfare, with the higher estimates of combined casualties amounting to nearly two million. The heavy losses inflicted on the German army made it a significant turning point in the whole war. After the Battle of Stalingrad, German forces never recovered their earlier strength, and attained no further strategic victories in the East.
The German offensive to capture Stalingrad commenced in late summer 1942, and was supported by intensive Luftwaffe bombing which reduced much of the city to rubble. The German offensive eventually became mired in building-to-building fighting; and despite controlling nearly all of the city at times, the Wehrmacht was unable to dislodge the last Soviet defenders clinging tenaciously to the west bank of the Volga River.
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Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria (German: Freistaat Bayern, pronounced [ˈfʁaɪʃtaːt ˈbaɪ.ɐn] ( listen)), is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of 70,548 square kilometres (27,200 sq mi), it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany. Bavaria is Germany's second most populous state (after North Rhine-Westphalia), with 12.5 million inhabitants, more than any of the three sovereign states on its borders. Bavaria's capital is Munich.
One of the oldest states of Europe, it was established as a duchy in the mid first millennium. In the 17th century, the Duke of Bavaria became a Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire. The Kingdom of Bavaria existed from 1806 to 1918, and Bavaria has since been a free state (republic). Modern Bavaria also includes parts of the historical regions of Franconia and Swabia.
The Bavarians emerged in a region north of the Alps, originally inhabited by the Gauls, which had been part of the Roman provinces of Raetia and Noricum. The Bavarians spoke Old High German but, unlike other Germanic groups, probably did not migrate from elsewhere. Rather, they seem to have coalesced out of other groups left behind by Roman withdrawal late in the 5th century. These peoples may have included the Celtic Boii, some remaining Romans, Marcomanni, Allemanni, Quadi, Thuringians, Goths, Scirians, Rugians, Heruli. The name "Bavarian" ("Baiuvarii") means "Men of Baia" which may indicate Bohemia, the homeland of the Celtic Boii and later of the Marcomanni. They first appear in written sources c. 520. Saint Boniface completed the people's conversion to Christianity in the early-8th century. Bavaria was, for the most part, unaffected by the Protestant Reformation.
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Belarus
Belarus (i/bɛləˈruːs/ bel-ə-ROOSS; Belarusian: Беларусь, Russian pronunciation: [bʲɛlaˈrusʲ] Russian: Беларусь, Белоруссия, Belarus', Belorussiya), officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno (Hrodna), Gomel (Homiel), Mogilev (Mahilyow) and Vitebsk (Vitsebsk). Over forty percent of its 207,600 square kilometres (80,200 sq mi) is forested, and its strongest economic sectors are agriculture and manufacturing.
Until the 20th century, the lands of modern-day Belarus belonged to several countries, including the Principality of Polotsk, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Russian Empire. In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, Belarus became a founding constituent republic of the Soviet Union and was renamed as the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR). The borders of Belarus took their modern shape in 1939 when some lands of the Second Polish Republic were incorporated into it after the Soviet invasion of Poland. The nation and its territory were devastated in World War II, during which Belarus lost about a third of its population and more than half of its economic resources. The republic was redeveloped in the post-war years. In 1945 the Belorussian SSR became a founding member of the United Nations, along with the Soviet Union and the Ukrainian SSR.
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Belgium
Belgium (i/ˈbɛldʒəm/ BEL-jəm), officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO. Belgium covers an area of 30,528 square kilometres (11,787 sq mi), and it has a population of about 11 million people. Straddling the cultural boundary between Germanic and Latin Europe, Belgium is home to two main linguistic groups, the Dutch-speakers, mostly Flemish (about 60%), and the French-speakers, mostly Walloons (about 40%), plus a small group of German-speakers. Belgium's two largest regions are the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders in the north and the French-speaking southern region of Wallonia. The Brussels-Capital Region, officially bilingual, is a mostly French-speaking enclave within the Flemish Region. A German-speaking Community exists in eastern Wallonia. Belgium's linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in the political history and a complex system of government.
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Berlin
Berlin ( /bɜrˈlɪn/; German pronunciation: [bɛɐ̯ˈliːn] ( listen)) is the capital city of Germany and one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.5 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city and is the second most populous city proper and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union. Located in northeastern Germany, it is the center of the Berlin-Brandenburg Metropolitan Region, which has 5.9 million residents from over 190 nations. Located in the European Plains, Berlin is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. Around one third of the city's area is composed of forests, parks, gardens, rivers and lakes.
First documented in the 13th century, Berlin was the capital of the Kingdom of Prussia (1701–1918), the German Empire (1871–1918), the Weimar Republic (1919–1933) and the Third Reich (1933–1945).Berlin in the 1920s was the third largest municipality in the world. After World War II, the city became divided into East Berlin—the capital of East Germany—and West Berlin, a West German exclave surrounded by the Berlin Wall (1961–1989). Following German reunification in 1990, the city regained its status as the capital of Germany, hosting 147 foreign embassies.
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Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer) was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin. The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, which circumscribed a wide area (later known as the "death strip") that contained anti-vehicle trenches, "fakir beds" and other defenses. The Eastern Bloc claimed that the wall was erected to protect its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the "will of the people" in building a socialist state in East Germany. In practice, the Wall served to prevent the massive emigration and defection that marked Germany and the communist Eastern Bloc during the post-World War II period.
The Berlin Wall was officially referred to as the "Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart" (German: Antifaschistischer Schutzwall) by GDR authorities, implying that neighbouring West Germany had not been fully de-Nazified. The West Berlin city government sometimes referred to it as the "Wall of Shame"—a term coined by mayor Willy Brandt—while condemning the Wall's restriction on freedom of movement. Along with the separate and much longer Inner German border (IGB) that demarcated the border between East and West Germany, both borders came to symbolize the "Iron Curtain" that separated Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.
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Brandenburg
Brandenburg ( listen (help·info); Low German: Brannenborg, Lower Sorbian: Bramborska; Upper Sorbian: Braniborska) is one of the sixteen federal-states of Germany. It lies in the east of the country and is one of the new federal states that were re-created in 1990 upon the reunification of the former West Germany and East Germany. The capital is Potsdam. Brandenburg surrounds but does not include the national capital and city-state of Berlin.
Originating in the medieval Northern March, the Margraviate of Brandenburg grew to become the core of the Kingdom of Prussia, which would later become the Free State of Prussia. The eastern third of historic Brandenburg (Ostbrandenburg/Neumark) was ceded to Poland in 1945.
In late medieval and early modern times, Brandenburg was one of seven electoral states of the Holy Roman Empire, and, along with Prussia, formed the original core of the German Empire, the first unified German state. Governed by the Hohenzollern dynasty from 1415, it contained the future German capital Berlin. After 1618 the Margraviate of Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia were combined to form Brandenburg-Prussia, which was ruled by the same branch of the House of Hohenzollern. In 1701 the state was elevated as the Kingdom of Prussia. Franconian Nuremberg and Ansbach, Swabian Hohenzollern, the eastern European connections of Berlin, and the status of Brandenburg's ruler as prince-elector together were instrumental in the rise of that state.
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Brandenburg Gate
The Brandenburg Gate (German: Brandenburger Tor) is a former city gate, rebuilt in the late 18th century as a neoclassical triumphal arch, and now one of the most well-known landmarks of Berlin and Germany. It is located west of the city centre at the junction of Unter den Linden and Ebertstraße, immediately west of the Pariser Platz. It is the only remaining gate of a series through which Berlin was once entered. One block to the north stands the Reichstag building. The gate is the monumental entry to Unter den Linden, the renowned boulevard of linden trees which formerly led directly to the city palace of the Prussian monarchs. It was commissioned by King Frederick William II of Prussia as a sign of peace and built by Carl Gotthard Langhans from 1788 to 1791. Having suffered considerable damage in World War II, the Brandenburg Gate was fully restored from 2000 to 2002 by the Stiftung Denkmalschutz Berlin (Berlin Monument Conservation Foundation). During the post-war Partition of Germany the gate was isolated and inaccessible immediately next to the Berlin Wall, and the area around the gate featured most prominently in the media coverage of the opening of the wall in 1989.
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Brazil
Brazili/brəˈzɪl/ (Portuguese: Brasil, IPA: [bɾaˈziw]), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: República Federativa do Brasil, listen (help·info)), is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people. It is the only Portuguese-speaking country in the Americas and the largest lusophone country in the world.
Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the east, Brazil has a coastline of 7,491 km (4,655 mi). It is bordered on the north by Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and the French overseas region of French Guiana; on the northwest by Colombia; on the west by Bolivia and Peru; on the southwest by Argentina and Paraguay and on the south by Uruguay. Numerous archipelagos form part of Brazilian territory, such as Fernando de Noronha, Rocas Atoll, Saint Peter and Paul Rocks, and Trindade and Martim Vaz. It borders all other South American countries except Ecuador and Chile.
Brazil was a colony of Portugal from the landing of Pedro Álvares Cabral in 1500 until 1815, when it was elevated to the rank of kingdom and the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves was formed. The colonial bond was in fact broken in 1808, when the capital of the Portuguese colonial empire was transferred from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, after Napoleon invaded Portugal.Independence was achieved in 1822 with the formation of the Empire of Brazil, a unitary state governed under a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system. The country became a presidential republic in 1889, when a military coup d'état proclaimed the Republic, although the bicameral legislature, now called Congress, dates back to the ratification of the first constitution in 1824. Its current Constitution, formulated in 1988, defines Brazil as a Federal Republic. The Federation is formed by the union of the Federal District, the 26 States, and the 5,564 Municipalities.
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Bremen (state)
The Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (German: Freie Hansestadt Bremen, pronounced [ˈbʁeːmən]) is the smallest of Germany's 16 states. A more informal name, but used in some official contexts, is Land Bremen ('Country Bremen').
The state of Bremen consists of two separated enclaves: Bremen, officially the 'City' (Stadtgemeinde Bremen) which is the state capital, and the city of Bremerhaven (Stadt Bremerhaven). Both are located on the River Weser; Bremerhaven is further downstream and serves as a North Sea harbour (the name means "Bremen's harbour"). Both cities are completely surrounded by the neighbouring State of Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen). The two cities are the only administrative subdivisions the state has.
At the unwinding of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 the Free Imperial City of Bremen (as of 1646, after earlier privileges of autonomy of 1186) was not mediatised but became a sovereign state officially titled Free Hanseatic City of Bremen. Its currency was the Bremen thaler (until 1873). In 1811 the First French Empire annexed the city-state. Upon the first, however only preliminary defeat of Napoléon Bonaparte, Bremen resumed its pre-1811 status as city-state in 1813. The Vienna Congress of 1815 confirmed Bremen's - as well as Frankfurt's, Hamburg's, and Lübeck's - independence after pressuring by Bremen's emissary, and later burgomaster, Johann Smidt. Bremen became one of 39 sovereign states of the German Confederation. In 1827 the state of Bremen bought the tract of land from the Kingdom of Hanover, where future Bremerhaven would be established. Bremen became part of the North German Confederation in 1867 and became an autonomous component state of the new-founded German Empire in 1871 and stayed with Germany in its following forms of government.
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Bulgaria
Coordinates: 42°45′N 25°30′E / 42.75°N 25.5°E / 42.75; 25.5
Bulgariai/bʌlˈɡɛəriə/ (Bulgarian: България, IPA: [bɤ̞ɫˈɡarijɐ]), is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and the Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south and the Black Sea to the east. With a territory of 110,994 square kilometres (42,855 sq mi), Bulgaria is Europe's 14th-largest country. Its location has made it a historical crossroad for various civilisations and as such it is the home of some of the earliest metalworking, religious and other cultural artifacts in the world.
Prehistoric cultures began developing on Bulgarian lands during the Neolithic period. Its ancient history was marked by the presence of the Thracians, and later by the Greeks and Romans. The emergence of a unified Bulgarian ethnicity and state dates back to the First Bulgarian Empire, which dominated most of the Balkans and functioned as a cultural hub for Slavic peoples during the Middle Ages. With the downfall of the Second Bulgarian Empire in 1396, its territories came under Ottoman rule for nearly five hundred years. The Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 resulted in the Third Bulgarian State, recognised in 1908. The following years saw several conflicts with its neighbours, which prompted Bulgaria to align with Germany in both World Wars. In 1946 it became a Communist republic with a single-party system until 1989, when the Communist Party allowed multi-party elections. After 1990 Bulgaria transitioned to democracy and a market-based economy.
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Bundesrat of Germany
The German Bundesrat (literally "Federal Council"; pronounced [ˈbʊndəsʁaːt]) is a legislative body that represents the sixteen Länder (federal states) of Germany at the federal level. It has its seat at the former Prussian House of Lords in Berlin.
The Bundesrat participates in legislation, alongside of the Bundestag, the directly elected representation of the people of Germany, with laws affecting state competences and all constitutional changes requiring the consent of the body. Functioning similarly, it is often said to be an upper house such as the US Senate or the House of Lords in the United Kingdom, although the German constitution does not declare the Bundestag and Bundesrat to form houses of a bicameral parliament (the word "Parliament" does not even occur in the Constitution). Officially, it is generally referred to as a "constitutional body" alongside the Bundestag, the President, the Government and the Federal Constitutional Court.
Bundesrath (from 1901 on: Bundesrat, according to a general spelling reform) was already the name of similar bodies in the North German Confederation (1867) and the German Empire (1871). In 1919-1933/1934 the name was Reichsrat.
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Bundestag
The Bundestag (Federal Diet; pronounced [ˈbʊndəstaːk]) is a legislative body in Germany. In practice Germany is governed by a bicameral legislature, of which the Bundestag serves as the lower house and the Bundesrat the upper house. The Bundestag was established by the German Basic Law of 1949, as the successor to the earlier Reichstag. Norbert Lammert is the current President of the Bundestag.
With the dissolution of the German Confederation in 1866 and the founding of the German Empire (Deutsches Reich) in 1871, the Reichstag was established as the German parliament in Berlin. Two decades later, the current parliament building was erected. The Reichstag delegates were elected by direct and equal male suffrage (and not the three-class electoral system prevailing in Prussia until 1918). The Reichstag did not participate in the appointment of the Chancellor until the parliamentary reforms of October 1918. After the Revolution of November 1918 and the establishment of the Weimar Constitution, women were given the right to vote for (and serve in) the Reichstag, and the parliament could use the no-confidence vote to force the chancellor or any cabinet member to resign. In March 1933, one month after the Reichstag fire, the then president, Paul von Hindenburg, a retired war hero, gave Hitler ultimate power through Enabling Act of 1933, he remained at the post of Federal Government Chancellor (though he called himself the Führer). After this the Reichstag met only rarely to unanimously rubber-stamp the decisions of the government. It last convened on 26 April 1942.
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Cameroon
Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon (French: République du Cameroun), is a country in west Central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Cameroon's coastline lies on the Bight of Bonny, part of the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean. The country is called "Africa in miniature" for its geological and cultural diversity. Natural features include beaches, deserts, mountains, rainforests, and savannas. The highest point is Mount Cameroon in the southwest, and the largest cities are Douala, Yaoundé, and Garoua. Cameroon is home to over 200 different linguistic groups. The country is well known for its native styles of music, particularly makossa and bikutsi, and for its successful national football team. French and English are the official languages.
Early inhabitants of the territory included the Sao civilisation around Lake Chad and the Baka hunter-gatherers in the southeastern rainforest. Portuguese explorers reached the coast in the 15th century and named the area Rio dos Camarões ("River of Prawns"), the name from which Cameroon derives. Fulani soldiers founded the Adamawa Emirate in the north in the 19th century, and various ethnic groups of the west and northwest established powerful chiefdoms and fondoms. Cameroon became a German colony in 1884.
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Canada
Canada ( /ˈkænədə/) is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean. Spanning over 9,900,000 km2 (3,800,000 sq mi), Canada is the world's second-largest country by total area, and its common border with the United States is the longest land border in the world.
The land that is now Canada has been inhabited for millennia by various Aboriginal peoples. Beginning in the late 15th century, British and French colonial expeditions explored, and later settled, along the region's Atlantic coast. France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763 after the Seven Years' War. In 1867, with the union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces. This began an accretion of provinces and territories and a process of increasing autonomy; the Canada Act 1982 severed the vestiges of legal dependence on Britain.
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China
China (i/ˈtʃaɪnə/; Chinese: 中国; pinyin: Zhōngguó; see also Names of China), officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is the world's most-populous country, with a population of over 1.3 billion. Covering approximately 9.6 million square kilometres, the East Asian state is the world's second-largest country by land area, and the third- or fourth-largest in total area, depending on the definition of total area.
The People's Republic of China is a single-party state governed by the Communist Party of China. It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four directly controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing), and two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau). Its capital city is Beijing. The PRC also claims Taiwan—which is controlled by the Republic of China (ROC), a separate political entity—as its 23rd province, a claim controversial due to the complex political status of Taiwan and the unresolved Chinese Civil War. The PRC government denies the legitimacy of the ROC.
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Congress of Vienna
The Congress of Vienna (German: Wiener Kongress) was a conference of ambassadors of European states chaired by Austrian statesman Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, and held in Vienna from September, 1814 to June, 1815. The objective of the Congress was to settle the many issues arising from the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic Wars, and the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire.
This objective resulted in the redrawing of the continent's political map, establishing the boundaries of France, the Duchy of Warsaw, the Netherlands, the states of the Rhine, the German province of Saxony, and various Italian territories, and the creation of spheres of influence through which Austria, Britain, France and Russia brokered local and regional problems. The Congress of Vienna was the first of a series of international meetings that came to be known as the Concert of Europe, which was an attempt to forge a peaceful balance of power in Europe, and served as a model for later organizations such as the League of Nations and United Nations.
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Council of Europe
The Council of Europe (French: Conseil de l'Europe) is an international organization promoting co-operation between all countries of Europe in the areas of legal standards, human rights, democratic development, the rule of law and cultural co-operation. It was founded in 1949, has 47 member states with some 800 million citizens, and is an entirely separate body from the European Union (EU), which has only 27 member states. Unlike the EU, the Council of Europe cannot make binding laws. The two do however share certain symbols such as the flag of Europe. The Council of Europe has nothing to do with either the Council of the European Union or the European Council, which are both EU bodies.
The best known bodies of the Council of Europe are the European Court of Human Rights, which enforces the European Convention on Human Rights, and the European Pharmacopoeia Commission, which sets the quality standards for pharmaceutical products in Europe. The Council of Europe's work has resulted in standards, charters and conventions to facilitate cooperation between European countries.
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Croatia
Croatia (i/kroʊˈeɪʃə/ kroh-AY-shə; Croatian: Hrvatska pronounced [xř̩ʋaːtskaː]), officially the Republic of Croatia (Croatian: Republika Hrvatska listen (help·info)), is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of Central Europe, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers 56,594 square kilometres (21,851 square miles) and has diverse, mostly continental and Mediterranean climates. Croatia's Adriatic Sea coast contains more than a thousand islands. The country's population is 4.29 million, most of whom are Croats, with the most common religious denomination being Roman Catholicism.
In the early 7th century the Croats arrived in area of present-day Croatia. They organised the state into two dukedoms by the 9th century. Tomislav became the first king by 925 AD, elevating Croatia to the status of a kingdom. The Kingdom of Croatia retained its sovereignty for nearly two centuries, reaching its peak during the rule of Kings Peter Krešimir IV and Dmitar Zvonimir. Croatia entered a personal union with Hungary in 1102. In 1527, faced with Ottoman conquest the Croatian Parliament elected Ferdinand I of the House of Habsburg to the Croatian throne. In 1918, after World War I, Croatia was included in the short-lived State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs that declared independence from Austria–Hungary and co-founded the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. A Croatian state briefly existed during World War II as a fascist puppet state. After the war, Croatia became a founding member and a federal constituent of the Second Yugoslavia, a socialist state. In June 1991, Croatia declared independence, which came into effect on 8 October of the same year. The Croatian War of Independence was fought successfully during the four years following the declaration.
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Cyprus
Cyprusi/ˈsaɪprəs/ (Greek: Κύπρος, Kýpros, IPA: [ˈcipɾos]; Turkish: Kıbrıs, IPA: [ˈkɯbɾɯs]), officially the Republic of Cyprus (Greek: Κυπριακή Δημοκρατία, Kypriakī́ Dīmokratía, IPA: [cipɾiaˈci ðimokɾaˈtia]; Turkish: Kıbrıs Cumhuriyeti, IPA: [ˈkɯbɾɯs dʒumhuɾijeˈti]), is an island country in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria, Lebanon, northwest of Israel and north of Egypt. Cyprus is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea and the Republic of Cyprus is a member state of the European Union.
The earliest known human activity on the island dates back to around the 10th millennium BC. Archaeological remains from this period include the well-preserved Neolithic village of Khirokitia, which has been declared a World Heritage Site with an "enhanced protection" status in the event of armed conflict by UNESCO, along with the archaeological sites of Paphos and the Painted Churches of the Troodos Region. Cyprus is home to some of the oldest water wells in the world.
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Czech Republic
The Czech Republic (i/ˈtʃɛk/ CHEK;Czech: Česká republika, pronounced [ˈtʃɛskaː ˈrɛpuˌblɪka] ( listen), short form Česko Czech pronunciation: [ˈtʃɛskɔ]) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the north, Germany to the west, Austria to the south and Slovakia to the east. Its capital and largest city, with 1.3 million inhabitants, is Prague.
It is a pluralist multi-party parliamentary representative democracy, a member of the European Union, NATO, the OECD, the OSCE, the Council of Europe and the Visegrád Group.
The Czech state, formerly known as Bohemia, was formed in the late 9th century as a small duchy around Prague, at that time under dominance of the powerful Great Moravian Empire (which reached its greatest territorial extent during the reign of Svatopluk I from the House of Mojmír). After the fall of the Empire in 907, the centre of power was transferred from Moravia to Bohemia, under the Přemyslids. During the rule of Přemyslid dukes/kings and their successors, the Luxembourgs, the country reached its greatest territorial extent (13th–14th century). Life in the country was significantly affected by the Hussite wars, during which it faced economic embargo and crusades from all over Europe. Following the Battle of Mohács in 1526, the Crown of Bohemia was gradually integrated into the Habsburg monarchy as one of its three principal parts alongside the Archduchy of Austria and the Kingdom of Hungary. The Bohemian Revolt (1618–20) led to the further centralization of the monarchy including forced recatholization and Germanization. During radical reforms in the 18th century the Bohemian Crown was even de facto abolished (1749). In the 19th century the Czech lands became the industrial powerhouse of the monarchy and the core of the Republic of Czechoslovakia which was formed in 1918, following the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire after World War I.
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Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia (Czech and Slovak: Československo, Česko-Slovensko) was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992. From 1939 to 1945, the state did not de facto exist because of its forced division and partial incorporation into Nazi Germany, but the Czechoslovak government-in-exile nevertheless continued to exist during this period. In 1945, the eastern part of Carpathian Ruthenia was taken over by the Soviet Union. On 1 January 1993, Czechoslovakia peacefully split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Form of state:
Neighbours:
Topography:
The country was of generally irregular terrain. The western area was part of north-central European uplands. The eastern region was composed of northern reaches of Carpathian Mountains and Danube River basin lands.
Climate:
The weather was predominantly continental, but varied from the moderate temperature of Western Europe in the west, to more severe weather of Eastern Europe and the western Soviet Union in the east.
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Denmark
The Kingdom of Denmark (Danish: Kongeriget Danmark, pronounced [ˈkɔŋəʁiːəð ˈdanmɑɡ̊] ( listen)) is a constitutional monarchy and sovereign state consisting the country of Denmark in northern Europe and two autonomous constituent countries, the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic and Greenland in North America. The kingdom is a unitary state with some power being devolved from Denmark proper to Greenland and the Faroe Islands; this polity is referred to as the Danish Realm. Denmark proper is the hegemonial area, where judicial, executive, and legislative power resides. The Faroe Islands are defined to be a community of people within the kingdom, and the Greenlandic people are defined as a separate people with the right to self-determination.
Denmark is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, located southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. The country consists of a large peninsula, Jutland and many islands, most notably Zealand, Funen, Lolland, Falster and Bornholm, as well as hundreds of minor islands often referred to as the Danish Archipelago.
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Deutsche Bundesbank
The Deutsche Bundesbank (German for German Federal Bank) is the central bank of the Federal Republic of Germany and as such part of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB). Due to its strength and former size, the Bundesbank is the most influential member of the ESCB. Both the Deutsche Bundesbank and the European Central Bank (ECB) are located in Frankfurt am Main. It is sometimes referred to as "Buba" for Bundesbank.
The Bundesbank was established in 1957 and succeeded the Bank deutscher Länder, which introduced the Deutsche Mark on 20 June 1948. Until the euro was physically introduced in 2002, the Deutsche Bundesbank was the central bank of the former Deutsche Mark ("German Mark", sometimes known in English as the "Deutschmark").
The Deutsche Bundesbank was the first central bank to be given full independence, leading this form of central bank to be referred to as the Bundesbank model, as opposed, for instance, to the New Zealand model, which has a goal (i.e. inflation target) set by the government.
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East Germans
The German Democratic Republic (GDR; German: Deutsche Demokratische Republik [ˈdɔʏtʃə demoˈkʀaːtɪʃə ʀepuˈbliːk] or DDR), informally known as East Germany (German: Ostdeutschland), was a socialist state established by the USSR in 1949 in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including East Berlin of the Allied-occupied capital city. The GDR had an area of 107,771 km2 (41,610 mi2), bordering Czechoslovakia to the south, West Germany to the south and west, Poland to the east, and the Baltic Sea to the north. East Germany was dissolved upon joining the institutions of West Germany in the German reunification, on 3 October 1990.
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East Germany
The German Democratic Republic (GDR; German: Deutsche Demokratische Republik [ˈdɔʏtʃə demoˈkʀaːtɪʃə ʀepuˈbliːk] or DDR), informally known as East Germany (German: Ostdeutschland), was a socialist state established by the USSR in 1949 in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including East Berlin of the Allied-occupied capital city. The GDR had an area of 107,771 km2 (41,610 mi2), bordering Czechoslovakia to the south, West Germany to the south and west, Poland to the east, and the Baltic Sea to the north. East Germany was dissolved upon joining the institutions of West Germany in the German reunification, on 3 October 1990.
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Egypt
Egypti/ˈiːdʒɪpt/ (Arabic: مصر, Miṣr, Egyptian Arabic: [mɑsˤɾ] ; Coptic: Ⲭⲏⲙⲓ, Kīmi ; Sahidic Coptic: ⲕⲏⲙⲉ, Kēme), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: جمهوريّة مصر العربيّة (help·info), is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world. Covering an area of about 1,010,000 square kilometers (390,000 sq mi), Egypt is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west.
Egypt is one of the most populous countries in Africa and the Middle East. The great majority of its over 81 million people live near the banks of the Nile River, in an area of about 40,000 square kilometers (15,000 sq mi), where the only arable land is found. The large areas of the Sahara Desert are sparsely inhabited. About half of Egypt's residents live in urban areas, with most spread across the densely populated centres of greater Cairo, Alexandria and other major cities in the Nile Delta.
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European Commission
The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union.
The Commission operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "commissioners" ). There is one member per member state, though members are bound to represent the interests of the EU as a whole rather than their home state. One of the 27 is the Commission President (currently José Manuel Durão Barroso) proposed by the European Council and elected by the European Parliament. The Council then appoints the other 26 members of the Commission in agreement with the nominated President, and then the 27 members as a single body are subject to a vote of approval by the European Parliament. The first Barroso Commission took office in late 2004 and its successor, under the same President, took office in 2010.
The term "Commission" is used either in the narrow sense of the 27-member College of Commissioners (or College) or to also include the administrative body of about 23,000 European civil servants who are split into departments called Directorates-General and Services. The internal working languages of the Commission are English, French and German. The Members of the Commission and their "cabinets" (immediate teams) are based in the Berlaymont building of Brussels.
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Faroe Islands
Coordinates: 62°00′N 06°47′W / 62°N 6.783°W / 62; -6.783
The Faroe Islands (Faroese: Føroyar pronounced [ˈfœɹjaɹ], Danish: Færøerne Danish pronunciation: [ˈfæɐ̯øːˀɐnə]) are an island group situated between the Norwegian Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, approximately halfway between Norway and Iceland. The islands form a self-governing country under the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Denmark. The total area is approximately 1,400 km² (540 sq mi) with a 2010 population of almost 50,000 people.
The Faroe Islands has been a self-governing dependency of Denmark since 1948. Over the years, the Faroese have taken control of most domestic matters. Areas that remain the responsibility of Denmark include military defence, police, justice, currency and foreign affairs. The Faroe Islands also has representatives in the Nordic Council as members of the Danish delegation.
The Faroe Islands were associated with and taxed by Denmark and Norway up to 1814, when Norway fell under the rule of Sweden. Scandinavia was in political turmoil following the Sixth Coalition of the Napoleonic Wars, when the Treaty of Kiel granted Denmark control over the Faroes, Iceland and Greenland in 1814. The Danish trade monopoly ended in 1856.
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Finland
Coordinates: 65°N 27°E / 65°N 027°E / 65; 027
Finlandi/ˈfɪnlənd/ ( Finnish: Suomi; Swedish: Finland (help·info)), officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.
Around 5.4 million people reside in Finland, with the majority concentrated in the southern region. It is the eighth largest country in Europe in terms of area and the most sparsely populated country in the European Union. Finland is a parliamentary republic with a central government based in Helsinki and local governments in 336 municipalities, and an autonomous region of the Åland Islands. About one million residents live in the Greater Helsinki area, which consists of Helsinki, Espoo, Kauniainen and Vantaa, and a third of the country's GDP is produced there. Other larger cities include Tampere, Turku, Oulu, Jyväskylä, Lahti and Kuopio.
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France
France (Englishi/ˈfræns/ FRANSS or /ˈfrɑːns/ FRAHNSS; French: [fʁɑ̃s] ( listen)), officially the French Republic (French: République française [ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛz]), is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. It is often referred to as l’Hexagone ("The Hexagon") because of the geometric shape of its territory. It is the largest western European country and it possesses the second-largest exclusive economic zone in the world, covering 11,035,000 km2 (4,260,000 sq mi), just behind that of the United States (11,351,000 km2 / 4,383,000 sq mi).
Over the past 500 years, France has been a major power with strong cultural, economic, military and political influence in Europe and around the world. During the 17th and 18th centuries, France colonised great parts of North America and Southeast Asia; during the 19th and early 20th centuries, France built the second largest colonial empire of the time, including large portions of North, West and Central Africa, Southeast Asia, and many Caribbean and Pacific Islands.
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Frankfurt Airport
Frankfurt am Main Airport (IATA: FRA, ICAO: EDDF), or simply Frankfurt Airport, known in German as Flughafen Frankfurt am Main or Rhein-Main-Flughafen, is a major international airport located in Frankfurt, Germany, 12 km (7.5 mi) southwest of the city centre.
Run by transport company Fraport, Frankfurt Airport is by far the busiest airport by passenger traffic in Germany, the third busiest in Europe (after London Heathrow Airport and Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport) and the ninth busiest worldwide in 2011. Passenger traffic at Frankfurt Airport in 2011 was 56.4 million. As of winter 2011/2012, Frankfurt Airport serves the most international destinations in the world, serving 275 destinations in 111 countries and is the busiest airport in Europe by cargo traffic. The southern side of the airport ground was home to the Rhein-Main Air Base, which was a major air base for the United States from 1947 until 2005, when the air base was closed and the property was acquired by Fraport.
The airport is centrally located in the Frankfurt/Rhine-Main region, Germany's second-largest metropolitan region, which itself has a central location in the densely populated region of the west-central European megalopolis. Thereby, along with a strong rail and motorway connection, the airport serves as a major transportation hub to the greater region, less than two hours by ground to Cologne, the Ruhr Area, and Stuttgart.
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Georgia (country)
Georgiai/ˈdʒɔrdʒə/ (Georgian: საქართველო Sakartvelo, IPA: [sɑkʰɑrtʰvɛlɔ] ( listen)) is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the south by Turkey and Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of Georgia is Tbilisi. Georgia covers a territory of 69,700 km² and its population is almost 4.7 million. Georgia is a unitary, semi-presidential republic, with the government elected through a representative democracy.
During the classical era independent kingdoms became established in what is now Georgia. The kingdoms of Colchis and Iberia adopted Christianity in the early 4th century. A unified Georgia reached the peak of its political and economic strength during the reign of King David IV and Queen Tamar in the 11th–12th centuries. At the beginning of the 19th century, Georgia was annexed by the Russian Empire. After a brief period of independence following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Georgia was occupied by Soviet Russia in 1921, becoming the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic and part of the Soviet Union. After independence in 1991, post-communist Georgia suffered from civil unrest and economic crisis for most of the 1990s. This lasted until the Rose Revolution of 2003, after which the new government introduced democratic and economic reforms.
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German Confederation
The German Confederation (German: Deutscher Bund) was the loose association of Central European states created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to coordinate the economies of separate German-speaking countries. It acted as a buffer between the powerful states of Austria and Prussia. Britain approved of it because London felt that there was need for a stable, peaceful power in central Europe that could discourage aggressive moves by France or Russia. According to Lee (1985), most historians have judged the Confederation to be weak and ineffective, as well as an obstacle to German nationalist aspirations. It collapsed due to the rivalry between Prussia and Austria (known as German dualism), warfare, the 1848 revolution, and the inability of the multiple members to compromise.
In 1848, revolutions by liberals and nationalists were a failed attempt to establish a unified German state. Talks between the German states failed in 1848, and the confederation briefly dissolved but was re-established in 1850.
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German Empire
The German Empire (German: Deutsches Kaiserreich) is the common name given to the state officially named the Deutsches Reich (literally: "German Realm"), designating Germany from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.
The German Empire consisted of 27 constituent territories (most of them ruled by royal families). While the Kingdom of Prussia contained most of the population and most of the territory of the Reich; the Prussian leadership became supplanted by German leaders and Prussia itself played a lesser role. As Dwyer (2005) points out, Prussia's "political and cultural influence had diminished considerably" by the 1890s. Its three largest neighbors were rivals Imperial Russia to the east and France to the west and ally Austria-Hungary to the south.
After 1850, Germany industrialized rapidly, with a foundation in coal, iron (and later steel), chemicals and railways. From a population of 41 million people in 1871, it grew to 68 million in 1913. From a heavily rural nation in 1815, it was now predominantly urban. During its 47 years of existence, the German Empire operated as an industrial, technological and scientific giant, receiving more Nobel Prizes in science than Britain, France, Russia and the United States combined.
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Germany
Germany (i/ˈdʒɜrməni/), officially the Federal Republic of Germany (German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland, pronounced [ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant] ( listen)), is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate. With 81.8 million inhabitants, it is the most populous member state and the largest economy in the European Union. It is one of the major political powers of the European continent and a technological leader in many fields.
A region named Germania, inhabited by several Germanic peoples, was documented before AD 100. During the Migration Period, the Germanic tribes expanded southward, and established successor kingdoms throughout much of Europe. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation while southern and western parts remained dominated by Roman Catholic denominations, with the two factions clashing in the Thirty Years' War, marking the beginning of the Catholic–Protestant divide that has characterized German society ever since. Occupied during the Napoleonic Wars, the rise of Pan-Germanism inside the German Confederation resulted in the unification of most of the German states into the German Empire in 1871 which was Prussian dominated. After the German Revolution of 1918–1919 and the subsequent military surrender in World War I, the Empire was replaced by the Weimar Republic in 1918, and partitioned in the Treaty of Versailles. Amidst the Great Depression, the Third Reich was proclaimed in 1933. The latter period was marked by Fascism and World War II. After 1945, Germany was divided by allied occupation, and evolved into two states, East Germany and West Germany. In 1990 Germany was reunified.
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Gibraltar
Gibraltar ( /dʒɨˈbrɒltər/) is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean. It has an area of 6.8 square kilometres (2.6 sq mi) and a northern border with Andalusia, Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region. At its foot is the densely populated city area, home to almost 30,000 Gibraltarians and other nationalities.
An Anglo-Dutch force captured Gibraltar from Spain in 1704 during the War of the Spanish Succession. The territory was subsequently ceded to Britain "in perpetuity" under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. It was an important base for the Royal Navy; today its economy is based largely on tourism, financial services, and shipping.
The sovereignty of Gibraltar is a major point of contention in Anglo-Spanish relations as Spain asserts a claim to the territory. Gibraltarians rejected proposals for Spanish sovereignty in a 1967 referendum and again in 2002. Under the Gibraltar constitution of 2006, Gibraltar governs its own affairs, though some powers, such as defence and foreign relations, remain the responsibility of the UK Government.
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Greece
Greecei/ˈɡriːs/ (Greek: Ελλάδα, Ellada, IPA: [eˈlaða] ( listen) historically in Katharevousa and Ancient Greek: Ἑλλάς, Hellas, IPA: [eˈlas] and [helːás] respectively), officially the Hellenic Republic (Ελληνική Δημοκρατία, Elliniki Dimokratia, IPA: [eliniˈci ðimokraˈtia]), is a country in Southern Europe, politically considered part of Western Europe.Athens is the capital and the largest city in the country (its urban area also including Piraeus). The population of the country is around 11 million.
Greece has land borders with Albania, the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the east. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of mainland Greece, the Ionian Sea to the west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the 11th longest coastline in the world at 13,676 km (8,498 mi) in length, featuring a vast number of islands (approximately 1,400, of which 227 are inhabited), including Crete, the Dodecanese, the Cyclades, and the Ionian Islands among others. Eighty percent of Greece consists of mountains, of which Mount Olympus is the highest at 2,917 m (9,570 ft).
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Guernsey
Guernsey, officially the Bailiwick of Guernsey ( /ˈɡɜrnzi/ GURN-zee; French: Bailliage de Guernesey, IPA: [bajaʒ də ɡɛʁnəzɛ]), is a British Crown dependency in the English Channel off the coast of Normandy.
The Bailiwick of Guernsey embraces not only all 10 parishes on the Island of Guernsey, but also the islands of Herm, Jethou, and Lihou. Furthermore, the Bailiwick includes Alderney and Sark, which each has its own parliament.
Although its defence is the responsibility of the United Kingdom, the Bailiwick of Guernsey is not part of the UK; and while it participates in the Common Travel Area, it is not part of the European Union.
The Bailiwick of Guernsey is included (along with the Bailiwick of Jersey) in the grouping known as the Channel Islands.
The name of Guernsey, as well as that of neighbouring Jersey, is of Old Norse origin. The second element of Guernsey (-ey) is the Old Norse for "island". Guern similar to Spanish "Cuerno", French "Coi(r)n", Dutch "Hoorn", Frisian "Hoarn", Swedish "Hörn", Swiss "Gorn" means "Corner". - Corner Island.
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Hamburg
Hamburg ( /ˈhæmbɜrɡ/; German pronunciation: [ˈhambʊɐ̯k], local pronunciation [ˈhambʊɪç]; Low German/Low Saxon: Hamborg [ˈhaˑmbɔːx]), officially Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, is the second-largest city in Germany, the thirteenth largest German state, and the sixth-largest city in the European Union. The city is home to over 1.8 million people, while the Hamburg Metropolitan Region (including parts of the neighbouring Federal States of Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein) has more than 4.3 million inhabitants. Situated on the river Elbe, the port of Hamburg is the second largest port in Europe (after the Port of Rotterdam) and 11th-largest worldwide.
Hamburg's official name, Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (German: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg), reflects Hamburg's history as a member of the medieval Hanseatic League, as a free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire, and that Hamburg is a city-state and one of the sixteen States of Germany.
Hamburg is a major transport hub in Northern Germany and is one of the most affluent cities in Europe. It has become a media and industrial centre, with plants and facilities belonging to Airbus, Blohm + Voss and Aurubis. The radio and television broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk and publishers such as Gruner + Jahr and Spiegel-Verlag are pillars of the important media industry in Hamburg. In total, there are more than 120,000 enterprises.
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Heiligendamm
Heiligendamm (German pronunciation: [ˈhaɪlɪɡəndam]) is a German seaside resort, founded in 1793. The small cluster of structures which still survive are reminders of the glory days of days gone by when this part of the Baltic Sea was one of the playgrounds of Europe's aristocracy. It is the oldest seaside spa in Germany. Heiligendamm is part of the town Bad Doberan in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
Due to the classicist white buildings lining the beach promenade, the town is also known as the "White Town by the Sea" (German: Die weiße Stadt am Meer). Today, the area by the sea is occupied by a five-star hotel. A narrow-gauge steam railway, known as the "Molli", links Heiligendamm with Kühlungsborn and Bad Doberan.
Heiligendamm was developed as an elegant meeting place for the nobility and high society. Among its most prominent guests were the German Emperors.
Its founder and first guest in 1793 was the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg Friedrich Franz I; he made the resort fashionable. Between 1793 and 1870, Johann Christoph, Heinrich von Seydwitz, Carl Theodor Severin, and Gustav Adolph Demmler created a veritable Gesamtkunstwerk for bathing and lodging. Heiligendamm was always the most elegant seaside resort in Germany. Nobility from throughout Europe used it as a summer getaway well into the 20th century.
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Hesse
Hesse /ˈhɛs/ or Hessia (German: Hessen [ˈhɛsən], Hessian dialect: Hesse [ˈhɛzə]) is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.
The English name "Hesse" comes from the Hessian dialect. The variant "Hessia" comes from the medieval latin Hassia. The German term Hessen is used by the European Commission, not because it is English, but because their general policy is to leave regional names untranslated (paragraphs 1.31 & 1.35). The term "Hesse" ultimately derives from a Germanic tribe called the Chatti, who settled in the region in the first century B.C.
An inhabitant of Hesse is called a Hessian (German: Hesse (masculine) or Hessin (feminine)) (see also Hessian (soldiers)).
As early as the Paleolithic period, the Central Hessian region was inhabited. Due to the favorable climate of the location, people lived there about 50,000 years ago during the last glacial period, as burial sites show from this era. Finds of paleolitical tools in southern Hesse in Rüsselsheim suggest Pleistocene hunters about 13,000 years ago. The Züschen tomb (German: Steinkammergrab von Züschen, sometimes also Lohne-Züschen) is a prehistoric burial monument, located between Lohne and Züschen, near Fritzlar, Hesse, Germany. Classified as a gallery grave or a Hessian-Westphalian stone cist (hessisch-westfälische Steinkiste), it is one of the most important megalithic monuments in Central Europe. Dating to the late 4th millennium BC (and possibly remaining in use until the early 3rd), it belongs to the Late Neolithic Wartberg culture.
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Hungary
Hungaryi/ˈhʌŋɡəri/ (Hungarian: Magyarország [ˈmɒɟɒrorsaːɡ] ( listen)) is a country, which is located in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The country's capital, and largest city, is Budapest. Hungary is a member of the European Union, NATO, the OECD, the Visegrád Group, and is a Schengen state. The official language is Hungarian, also known as Magyar, which is part of the Finno-Ugric group and is the most widely spoken non-Indo-European language in Europe.
Following a Celt (after c. 450 BC) and a Roman (AD 9 - c. 430) period, the foundation of Hungary was laid in the late 9th century by the Hungarian prince Árpád, whose great-grandson Saint Stephen I was crowned with a crown sent by the pope from Rome in 1000 AD. The Kingdom of Hungary lasted for 946 years, and at various points was regarded as one of the cultural centres of the Western world. After about 150 years of partial Ottoman occupation (1541–1699), Hungary was integrated into the Habsburg Monarchy, and later constituted half of the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy (1867–1918).
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Iceland
Icelandi/ˈaɪslənd/ (Icelandic: Ísland, IPA: [ˈislant]) is a Nordic European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The country has a population of about 320,000 and a total area of 103,000 km2 (40,000 sq mi). The capital and largest city is Reykjavík, with the surrounding areas in the southwestern region of the country being home to two-thirds of the country's population. Iceland is volcanically and geologically active. The interior mainly consists of a plateau characterised by sand fields, mountains and glaciers, while many glacial rivers flow to the sea through the lowlands. Iceland is warmed by the Gulf Stream and has a temperate climate despite a high latitude just outside the Arctic Circle.
According to Landnámabók, the settlement of Iceland began in AD 874 when the chieftain Ingólfur Arnarson became the first permanent Norse settler on the island. Others had visited the island earlier and stayed over winter. Over the following centuries, Norsemen settled Iceland, bringing with them thralls (slaves) of Gaelic origin. From 1262 to 1918 Iceland was part of the Norwegian and later the Danish monarchies. Until the 20th century, the Icelandic population relied largely on fisheries and agriculture, and the country was one of the poorest and least developed in the world. Industrialisation of the fisheries and aid from the Marshall Plan brought prosperity in the years after World War II, and by the 1990s it was one of the world's wealthiest countries. In 1994, Iceland became party to the European Economic Area, which made it possible for the economy to diversify into economic and financial services.
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India
India (i/ˈɪndiə/), officially the Republic of India (Bhārat Gaṇarājya), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the south-west, and the Bay of Bengal on the south-east, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west;China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north-east; and Burma and Bangladesh to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; in addition, India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia.
Home to the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation and a region of historic trade routes and vast empires, the Indian subcontinent was identified with its commercial and cultural wealth for much of its long history. Four of the world's major religions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism—originated here, whereas Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived in the 1st millennium CE and also helped shape the region's diverse culture. Gradually annexed by and brought under the administration of the British East India Company from the early 18th century and administered directly by the United Kingdom from the mid-19th century, India became an independent nation in 1947 after a struggle for independence that was marked by non-violent resistance led by Mahatma Gandhi.
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Indonesia
Indonesia (i/ˌɪndəˈniːʒə/ IN-də-NEE-zhə or /ˌɪndoʊˈniːziə/ IN-doh-NEE-zee-ə), officially the Republic of Indonesia (Indonesian: Republik Indonesia Indonesian pronunciation: [rɛpʊblɪk ɪndɔnɛsɪa]), is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 17,508 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an elected legislature and president. The nation's capital city is Jakarta. The country shares land borders with Papua New Guinea, East Timor, and Malaysia. Other neighboring countries include Singapore, Philippines, Australia, and the Indian territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Indonesia is a founding member of ASEAN and a member of the G-20 major economies. The Indonesian economy is the world's 17th largest economy by nominal GDP.
The Indonesian archipelago has been an important trade region since at least the 7th century, when Srivijaya and then later Majapahit traded with China and India. Local rulers gradually absorbed foreign cultural, religious and political models from the early centuries CE, and Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms flourished. Indonesian history has been influenced by foreign powers drawn to its natural resources. Muslim traders brought Islam, and European powers brought Christianity and fought one another to monopolize trade in the Spice Islands of Maluku during the Age of Discovery. Following three and a half centuries of Dutch colonialism, Indonesia secured its independence after World War II. Indonesia's history has since been turbulent, with challenges posed by natural disasters, corruption, separatism, a democratization process, and periods of rapid economic change.
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Isle of Man
The Isle of Man ( /ˈmæn/; Manx: Ellan Vannin, pronounced [ˈɛlʲən ˈvanɪn]), otherwise known simply as Mann (Manx: Mannin, IPA: [ˈmanɪn]), is a self-governing Crown Dependency of the United Kingdom, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is represented by a Lieutenant Governor. The island is not part of the United Kingdom, but its foreign relations and defence are the responsibility of the UK Government. Although the United Kingdom does not usually interfere in the island's domestic matters, its "good government" is ultimately the responsibility of the Crown (that is, in practice, the Government of the United Kingdom).
The island has been inhabited since before 6500 BC. Gaelic cultural influence began in the 5th century AD, and the Manx language, a branch of the Gaelic languages, gradually emerged. In the 9th century, the Norse began to settle there. A Norse-Gaelic culture arose and the island came under Norse control. In 1266, the island became part of Scotland as formalised by the Treaty of Perth. After a period of alternating rule by the kings of Scotland and England, the island came under the feudal overlordship of the English Crown in 1399. The lordship revested into the British Crown in 1764 but the island never became part of Great Britain or its successor the United Kingdom and retained its status as an internally self-governing Crown dependency.
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Israel
Coordinates: 31°N 35°E / 31°N 35°E / 31; 35
Israel, officially the State of Israel ( /ˈɪzriːəl/ or /ˈɪzreɪəl/; Hebrew: מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, Medīnat Yisrā'el, IPA: [me̞diˈnät jisʁäˈʔe̞l] ( listen); Arabic: دَوْلَة إِسْرَائِيل, Dawlat Isrāʼīl, IPA: [dawlat ʔisraːˈʔiːl]), is a parliamentary republic in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan and the West Bank in the east, Egypt and the Gaza Strip on the southwest, and the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea to the south, and it contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area. Israel is defined as a Jewish and Democratic State in its Basic Laws and is the world's only Jewish-majority state.
Following the adoption of a resolution by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 29 November 1947 recommending the adoption and implementation of the United Nations plan to partition Palestine, on 14 May 1948 David Ben-Gurion, the Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization and president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel, a state independent from the British Mandate for Palestine. Neighboring Arab states invaded the next day in support of the Palestinian Arabs. Israel has since fought several wars with neighboring Arab states, in the course of which it has occupied the West Bank, Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights. Portions of these territories, including east Jerusalem, have been annexed by Israel, but the border with the neighboring West Bank has not yet been permanently defined.[neutrality is disputed] Israel has signed peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, but efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have so far not resulted in peace.
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Italy
Italyi/ˈɪtəli/ (Italian: Italia [iˈtaːlja]), officially the Italian Republic or the Republic of Italy (Italian: Repubblica italiana), is a unitary parliamentary republic in south-central Europe. To the north, it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia along the Alps. To the south, it consists of the entirety of the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Sardinia–the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea–and many other smaller islands. The independent states of San Marino and the Vatican City are enclaves within Italy, while Campione d'Italia is an Italian exclave in Switzerland. The territory of Italy covers some 301,338 km2 (116,347 sq mi) and is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. With 60.6 million inhabitants, it is the fifth most populous country in Europe, and the 23rd most populous in the world.
Rome, the capital of Italy, was for centuries a political and religious centre of Western civilisation as the capital of the Roman Empire and site of the Holy See. After the decline of the Roman Empire, Italy endured numerous invasions by foreign peoples, from Germanic tribes such as the Lombards and Ostrogoths, to the Byzantines and later, the Normans, among others. Centuries later, Italy became the birthplace of Maritime republics and the Renaissance, an immensely fruitful intellectual movement that would prove to be integral in shaping the subsequent course of European thought.
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Japan
Japani/dʒəˈpæn/ (Japanese: 日本 Nihon or Nippon; formally 日本国 
Nippon-koku or Nihon-koku, literally the State of Japan) is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south. The characters that make up Japan's name mean "sun-origin", which is why Japan is sometimes referred to as the "Land of the Rising Sun".
Japan is an archipelago of 6,852 islands. The four largest islands are Honshū, Hokkaidō, Kyūshū and Shikoku, together accounting for ninety-seven percent of Japan's land area. Japan has the world's tenth-largest population, with over 127 million people. The Greater Tokyo Area, which includes the de facto capital city of Tokyo and several surrounding prefectures, is the largest metropolitan area in the world, with over 30 million residents.
Archaeological research indicates that people lived in Japan as early as the Upper Paleolithic period. The first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other nations followed by long periods of isolation has characterized Japan's history. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, victory in the First Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War and World War I allowed Japan to expand its empire during a period of increasing militarism. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since adopting its revised constitution in 1947, Japan has maintained a unitary constitutional monarchy with an emperor and an elected parliament called the Diet.
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Jersey
Jersey, officially the Bailiwick of Jersey, French: Bailliage de Jersey ( /ˈdʒɜrzi/, French: [ʒɛʁzɛ]; Jèrriais: Jèrri), is a British Crown Dependency off the coast of Normandy, France. As well as the island of Jersey itself, the bailiwick includes two groups of small islands that are no longer permanently inhabited, the Minquiers and Écréhous, and the Pierres de Lecq and other rocks and reefs.
Jersey is a self-governing parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarchy, with its own financial, legal and judicial systems.
The island of Jersey is the largest of the Channel Islands. Although the Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey are often referred to collectively as 'the Channel Islands', they are not a constitutional or political unit. Jersey has a separate relationship to the British Crown from the other Crown Dependencies of Guernsey and the Isle of Man. It is not part of the United Kingdom, and has an international identity separate from that of the UK but the United Kingdom is constitutionally responsible for the defence of Jersey. Jersey is not a part of the European Union but has a special relationship with it, being treated as part of the European Community for the purposes of free trade in goods.
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Jordan
Jordan ( /ˈdʒɔr.dən/;Arabic: اَلأُرْدُنّ, Al-'Urdunn), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (Arabic: اَلمَمْلَكَة اَلأُرْدُنِيَّة اَلهَاشِمِيَّة), Al-Mamlakah Al-Urdaniyyah Al-Hashimiyyah) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing control of the Dead Sea with the latter. Jordan's only port is at its south-western tip, at the Gulf of Aqaba, which is shared with Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Over half of Jordan is covered by the Arabian Desert. However, the western part of Jordan is arable land and forests. Jordan is part of the Fertile Crescent. The capital city is Amman. According to the CIA World Factbook, Jordan has the second highest life expectancy in the Middle East, after Israel. The average life expectancy is one position behind the United Kingdom, although the age remains exactly the same (80.05 years).
The precursor to modern Jordan was founded in 1921 as the Hashemite Emirate, and it was recognized by the League of Nations as a state under the British mandate in 1922 known as The Emirate of Transjordan. In 1946, Jordan became an independent sovereign state officially known as the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan. After capturing the West Bank area of Cisjordan during the 1948–49 war with Israel, Abdullah I took the title King of Jordan and Palestine, and he officially changed the country's name to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in April 1949.
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Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan (i/ˌkɑːzəkˈstɑːn/ or /ˌkæzəkˈstæn/) (Kazakh: Қазақстан, Qazaqstan, pronounced [qɑzɑqstɑ́n]; Russian: Казахстан [kəzɐxˈstan]), officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Europe. The ninth largest country in the world by land area, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of 2,727,300 square kilometres (1,053,000 sq mi) is larger than Western Europe. It is neighbored clockwise from the north by Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and also borders on a significant part of the Caspian Sea. Although Kazakhstan does not share a border with Mongolia, its most easterly point is only 38 kilometres (24 mi) from Mongolia's western tip. The terrain of Kazakhstan ranges from flatlands, steppes, taigas, rock-canyons, hills, deltas, and snow-capped mountains to deserts. With 16.6 million people (2011 estimate) Kazakhstan has the 62nd largest population in the world, though its population density is less than 6 people per square kilometre (15 per sq. mi.). The capital was moved in 1998 from Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city, to Astana.
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Kosovo
Kosovo ( /ˈkɒsəvoʊˌ ˈkoʊsəvoʊ/; Albanian: Kosovë, Kosova; Serbian: Косово or Косово и Метохија or Космет, Kosovo or Kosovo i Metohija or Kosmet) is a region in southeastern Europe. In antiquity, it was known as the independent kingdom, and later Roman province, of Dardania. Part of the medieval Serbia, it was then conquered by the Ottoman Empire, later incorporated into Serbia after the First Balkan War and before the constitution of Yugoslavia, later still it became the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija (Serbian: Autonomna Pokrajina Kosovo i Metohija) within Serbia (Serbia then being one of the constituent republics of Yugoslavia). Long-term severe ethnic tensions between Kosovo's Albanian and Serb populations have left Kosovo ethnically divided, resulting in inter-ethnic violence, including the Kosovo War of 1999. Following the Kosovo War, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) relinquished governance of this territory, whose governance was taken over by the United Nations, Kosovo remained legally the sovereign territory of the FRY after the transfer of authority. The partially recognised Republic of Kosovo (Albanian: Republika e Kosovës; Serbian: Република Косово, Republika Kosovo), a self-declared independent state, has de facto control over most of the territory, while North Kosovo, the largest Kosovo Serb enclave, is under the control of institutions of the Republic of Serbia.Serbia does not recognise the unilateral secession of Kosovo and considers it a UN-governed entity within its sovereign territory.
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Latvia
Latviai/ˈlætviə/ (Latvian: Latvija), officially the Republic of Latvia (Latvian: Latvijas Republika), is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia (border length 343 km), to the south by Lithuania (588 km), to the east by the Russian Federation (276 km), to the southeast by Belarus (141 km), and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden. With 2,067,887 inhabitants and a territory of 64,589 km2 (24,938 sq mi) it is one of the least populous and least densely populated countries of the European Union. The capital of Latvia is Riga. The official language is Latvian and the currency is called Lats (Ls). The country has a temperate seasonal climate.
The Latvians are a Baltic people, culturally related to the Lithuanians. Together with the Finno-Ugric Livs (or Livonians), the Latvians are the indigenous people of Latvia.Latvian is an Indo-European language and along with Lithuanian the only two surviving members of the Baltic branch. Indigenous minority languages are Latgalian and the nearly extinct Finno-Ugric Livonian language. In terms of geography, territory and population Latvia is the middle of three Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Latvia and Estonia share a long common history: historical Livonia, times of German (Teutonic Order), Polish-Lithuanian, Swedish, Russian, Nazi German and Soviet rule, 13th century Christianization and 16th century Protestant Reformation. Both countries are home to a large number of ethnic Russians (26.9% in Latvia and 25.5% in Estonia) of whom some are non-citizens. Latvia is historically predominantly Protestant, except for the region of Latgalia in the southeast which is historically predominantly Roman Catholic.
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Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States of America, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in four buildings in Washington, D.C., as well as the Packard Campus in Culpeper, Virginia, it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and number of books. The head of the Library is the Librarian of Congress, currently James H. Billington.
The Library of Congress was instituted for Congress in 1800, and was housed in the United States Capitol for most of the 19th century. After much of the original collection had been destroyed during the War of 1812, Thomas Jefferson sold 6,487 books, his entire personal collection, to the library in 1815. After a period of decline during the mid-19th century the Library of Congress began to grow rapidly in both size and importance after the American Civil War, culminating in the construction of a separate library building and the transference of all copyright deposit holdings to the Library. During the rapid expansion of the 20th century the Library of Congress assumed a preeminent public role, becoming a "library of last resort" and expanding its mission for the benefit of scholars and the American people.
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Liechtenstein
Liechtenstein, officially the Principality of Liechtenstein (i/ˈlɪktənstaɪn/ LIK-tən-styn; German: Fürstentum Liechtenstein, German pronunciation: [ˈfʏʁstn̩tuːm ˈlɪçtn̩ʃtaɪn]) is a doubly landlocked alpine country in Central Europe, bordered by Switzerland to the west and south and by Austria to the east. Its area is just over 160 square kilometres (62 sq mi), and it has an estimated population of 35,000. Its capital is Vaduz. The biggest town is Schaan. Liechtenstein has the highest gross domestic product per person in the world when adjusted by purchasing power parity, and has the world's lowest external debt. Liechtenstein also has the second lowest unemployment rate in the world at 1.5% (Monaco is first).
Liechtenstein is the smallest yet the richest (by measure of GDP per capita) German-speaking country in the world and the only country to lie entirely within the Alps. It is known as a principality as it is a constitutional monarchy headed by a prince. Liechtenstein is divided into 11 municipalities. Much of its terrain is mountainous, making it a winter sports destination. Many cultivated fields and small farms characterize its landscape both in the south (Oberland, upper land) and in the north (Unterland, lower land). The country has a strong financial sector located in the capital, Vaduz, and has been identified as a tax haven. It is a member of the European Free Trade Association and part of the European Economic Area, the Schengen Area but not of the European Union.
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Lithuania
Lithuania (i/ˌlɪθuːˈeɪniə/ or /ˌlɪθjuːˈeɪniə/; Lithuanian: Lietuva), officially the Republic of Lithuania (Lithuanian: Lietuvos Respublika) is a country in Northern Europe, the largest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark. It borders Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, Poland to the south, and a Russian exclave (Kaliningrad Oblast) to the southwest. Lithuania has an estimated population of 3.2 million as of 2011, and its capital and largest city is Vilnius. The Lithuanians are a Baltic people, and the official language, Lithuanian, is one of only two living languages (together with Latvian) in the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family.
For centuries, the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea was inhabited by various Baltic tribes. In the 1230s the Lithuanian lands were united by Mindaugas, who was crowned as King of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the first Lithuanian state, on 6 July 1253. During the 14th century, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the largest country in Europe: present-day Belarus, Ukraine, and parts of Poland and Russia were territories of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. With the Lublin Union of 1569, Lithuania and Poland formed a voluntary two-state union, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Commonwealth lasted more than two centuries, until neighboring countries systematically dismantled it from 1772 to 1795, with the Russian Empire annexing most of Lithuania's territory.
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Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony (German: Niedersachsen [ˈniːdɐzaksən], Low German: Neddersassen) is a German state situated in northwestern Germany and is second in area and fourth in population among the sixteen states of Germany. In rural areas Northern Low Saxon, a dialect of Low German, is still spoken, but the number of speakers is declining.
Lower Saxony borders on (from north and clockwise) the North Sea, the states of Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia, and the Kingdom of the Netherlands. In fact, Lower Saxony borders more neighbours than any other single federal state. The state of Bremen forms two enclaves within Lower Saxony, one being the city of Bremen, the other, its seaport city of Bremerhaven. The state's principal cities include Hanover, Brunswick, Lüneburg, Osnabrück, Oldenburg, and Göttingen.
The northwestern area of Lower Saxony, which lies on the coast of the North Sea, is called East Frisia and the seven East Frisian Islands offshore are popular with tourists. In the extreme west of Lower Saxony is the Emsland, a traditionally poor and sparsely populated area, once dominated by inaccessible swamps. The northern half of Lower Saxony, also known as the North German Plains, is almost invariably flat except for the gentle hills around the Bremen geestland. Towards the south and southwest lie the northern parts of the German Central Uplands: the Weser Uplands and the Harz mountains. Between these two lie the Lower Saxon Hills, a range of low ridges.
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Lufthansa
Deutsche Lufthansa AG (FWB: LHA, OTCQX: DLAKY) (German pronunciation: [ˈdɔʏt͡ʃə ˈlʊfthanza]) is the flag carrier of Germany and the largest airline in Europe in terms of overall passengers carried and fleet size. The German government had a 35.68% stake in Lufthansa until 1997, but the company is now owned by private investors (88.52%), MGL Gesellschaft für Luftverkehrswerte (10.05%), Deutsche Postbank (1.03%), and Deutsche Bank (0.4%) and has 37,042 employees (as of March 2007). The name of the company is derived from Luft (the German word for "air"), and Hansa (after the Hanseatic League, a powerful medieval trading group).[citation needed]
The airline is the world's fourth-largest airline in terms of overall passengers carried, operating services to 18 domestic destinations and 203 international destinations in 78 countries across Africa, Americas, Asia and Europe. Together with its partners, Lufthansa services around 410 destinations. With over 710 aircraft it has the second-largest passenger airline fleet in the world when combined with its subsidiaries.
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Luxembourg
Luxembourg (i/ˈlʌksəmbɜrɡ/ LUKS-əm-burg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (Luxembourgish: Groussherzogtum Lëtzebuerg, French: Grand-Duché de Luxembourg, German: Großherzogtum Luxemburg, Dutch: Groothertogdom Luxemburg), is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland ("good country") in the south. Luxembourg has a population of over half a million people in an area of approximately 2,586 square kilometres (998 sq mi). A representative democracy with a constitutional monarch, it is ruled by a grand duke. It is now the world's only remaining sovereign grand duchy. The country has a highly developed economy, with the world's highest GDP (nominal) per capita according to the IMF. Its historic and strategic importance dates back to its founding as a Roman era fortress site and Frankish count's castle site in the Early Middle Ages. It was an important bastion along the Spanish Road when Spain was the principal European power influencing the whole western hemisphere and beyond in the 16th–17th centuries.
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Malta
Maltai/ˈmɒltə/, officially known as the Republic of Malta (Maltese: Repubblika ta' Malta), is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, 80 km (50 mi) south of Sicily, 284 km (176 mi) east of Tunisia and 333 km (207 mi) north of Libya, with Gibraltar 1,755 km (1,091 mi) to the west and Alexandria 1,508 km (937 mi) to the east. Malta covers just over 316 km2 (122 sq mi) in land area, making it one of the world's smallest states. It is also one of the most densely populated countries worldwide. The de facto capital city of Malta is Valletta; the largest town, Birkirkara. The main island comprises many towns, which together form one Larger Urban Zone (LUZ) with a population of 368,250 according to Eurostat. The country has two official languages, Maltese (constitutionally the national language) and English.
Throughout history, Malta's location has given it great strategic importance, and a succession of powers including the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Normans, Aragonese, Habsburg Spain, Knights of St John, French and the British ruled the islands. Malta gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1964 and became a republic in 1974, whilst retaining membership in the Commonwealth of Nations. Malta was admitted to the United Nations in 1964 and to the European Union in 2004. Malta is also party to the Schengen Agreement and in 2008 it became part of the eurozone.
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Mexico
Mexico (i/ˈmɛksɨkoʊ/; Spanish: México, IPA: [ˈmexiko] ( listen)), officially the United Mexican States (Spanish: Estados Unidos Mexicanos (help·info)), is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States of America; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of Mexico. Covering almost two million square kilometres (over 760,000 sq mi), Mexico is the fifth largest country in the Americas by total area and the thirteenth largest independent nation in the world. With an estimated population of over 113 million, it is the eleventh most populous country and the most populous Spanish-speaking country. Mexico is a federation comprising thirty-one states and a Federal District, the capital city.
In Pre-Columbian Mexico many cultures matured into advanced civilizations such as the Olmec, the Toltec, the Teotihuacan, the Zapotec, the Maya and the Aztec before the first contact with Europeans. In 1521, Spain conquered and colonized the territory from its base in México-Tenochtitlan, which was administered as the Viceroyalty of New Spain. This territory would eventually become Mexico as the colony's independence was recognized in 1821. The post-independence period was characterized by economic instability, the Mexican-American War and territorial cession to the United States, a civil war, two empires and a domestic dictatorship. The latter led to the Mexican Revolution in 1910, which culminated with the promulgation of the 1917 Constitution and the emergence of the country's current political system. Elections held in July 2000 marked the first time that an opposition party won the presidency from the Institutional Revolutionary Party.
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Moldova
Moldovai/mɒlˈdoʊvə/, officially the Republic of Moldova (Moldovan/Romanian: Republica Moldova pronounced [reˈpublika molˈdova]) is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe located between Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991 as part of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. On 29 July 1994, the new constitution of Moldova was adopted. A strip of Moldova's internationally recognized territory on the east bank of the river Dniester has been under the de facto control of the breakaway government of Transnistria since 1990.
The nation is a parliamentary republic with a president as head of state and a prime minister as head of government. Moldova is a member state of the United Nations, Council of Europe, WTO, OSCE, GUAM, CIS, BSEC and other international organizations. Moldova currently aspires to join the European Union, and has implemented the first three-year Action Plan within the framework of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP).
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Monaco
Monacoi/ˈmɒnəkoʊ/, officially the Principality of Monaco (French: Principauté de Monaco; Monégasque: Principatu de Múnegu; Italian: Principato di Monaco; Occitan: Principat de Mónegue), is a sovereign city state, located on the French Riviera in Western Europe. Bordered by France on three sides, with one side bordering the Mediterranean Sea, its center is about 16 km (9.9 mi) from Italy, and is only 15 km (9.3 mi) north east of Nice, France. It has an area of 1.98 km2 (0.76 sq mi), and a population of 35,986, making Monaco the second smallest and the most densely populated country in the world. Monaco has a land border of only 4.4 km (2.7 mi), a coastline of 4.1 km (2.5 mi), and a width that varies between 1.7 km (1.1 mi) and 349 metres (382 yards). The highest point in the country is a narrow pathway named Chemin des Révoires on the slopes of Mont Agel, in the Les Révoires district, which is 161 metres (528 feet) above sea level. Monaco's most populated Quartier is Monte Carlo, and the most populated Ward is Larvotto/Bas Moulins. After a recent expansion of Port Hercules, Monaco's total area is 2.05 km2 (0.79 sq mi), with new plans to extend the district of Fontvieille, with land reclaimed from the Mediterranean Sea.
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Mongolia
Mongoliai/mɒŋˈɡoʊliə/ (Mongolian: Монгол улс (help·info), literally Mongol country/state) is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only 38 kilometres (24 mi) from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator, the capital and largest city, is home to about 45% of the population. Mongolia's political system is a parliamentary republic.
The area of what is now Mongolia has been ruled by various nomadic empires, including the Xiongnu, the Xianbei, the Rouran, the Gökturks and others. The Mongol Empire was founded by Genghis Khan in 1206. After the collapse of the Yuan Dynasty, the Mongols returned to their earlier pattern of constant internal conflict and occasional raids on the Chinese borderlands. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Mongolia came under the influence of Tibetan Buddhism. At the end of the 17th century, all of Mongolia had been incorporated into the area ruled by the Qing Dynasty. During the collapse of the Qing Dynasty in 1911, Mongolia declared independence, but had to struggle until 1921 to firmly establish de facto independence from the Republic of China, and until 1945 to gain international recognition.
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Montenegro
Montenegro (i/ˌmɒntɨˈneɪɡroʊ/ or /ˌmɒntɨˈniːɡroʊ/; or /ˌmɒntɨˈnɛɡroʊ/; Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора [tsr̩̂ːnaː ɡɔ̌ra] ( listen), meaning "Black Mountain") is a country in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the southeast. Its capital and largest city is Podgorica, while Cetinje is designated as the Prijestonica (Пријестоница), meaning the former Royal Capital City.
In the 10th century, there existed three Slavic principalities on the territory of Montenegro: Duklja, roughly corresponding to the southern half, Travunia, the west, and Rascia, the north. In 1042, archon Stefan Vojislav led a revolt that resulted in independence of Duklja and the establishment of the Vojislavljević dynasty. Duklja reached its zenith under Vojislav's son, Mihailo (1046–81), and his son Bodin (1081–1101). By the 13th century, Zeta had replaced Duklja when referring to the realm, which at the time was part of the Serbian Grand Principality of the Nemanjić dynasty.
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Morocco
Morocco (Arabic: المغرب al-Maghrib ; Berber: ⵍⵎⴻⵖⵔⵉⴱ / ⴰⵎⴻⵔⵔⵓⴽElmeɣrib / Amerruk), officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of about 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², including the disputed region of the Western Sahara, seen by and mostly administered by Morocco as the Southern Provinces. Morocco is part of the Maghreb region, in addition to Tunisia, Algeria, Mauritania, and Libya, with which it shares cultural, historical and linguistic ties.
Morocco is a constitutional monarchy with an elected parliament. The King of Morocco holds vast executive powers, including the power to dissolve the parliament. Executive power is exercised by the government but more importantly by the king himself. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the two chambers of parliament, the Assembly of Representatives and the Assembly of Councillors. The king can also issue decrees called dahirs which have the force of law. The latest Parliamentary elections were held in November 25, 2011, and were considered by some neutral observers to be mostly free and fair. Voter turnout in these elections was estimated to be 43% of registered voters, but only about 25% of Moroccan adult citizens actually voted. The rest either chose not to vote or they were not registered as voters. The political capital is Rabat, but the largest city is Casablanca; other main cities include Marrakesh, Tetouan, Tangier, Salé, Fes, Agadir, Meknes, Oujda, Kenitra, and Nador.
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Munich Airport
Munich Airport (IATA: MUC, ICAO: EDDM) (German: Flughafen München), is located 28.5 km (17.7 mi) northeast of Munich, Germany, and is a hub for Lufthansa and Star Alliance partner airlines. It lies nearby the old city of Freising and is named in memory of politician Franz Josef Strauss. The airport is located on the territory of four different municipalities: Oberding (location of the terminals; district of Erding), Hallbergmoos, Freising and Marzling (district of Freising).
Between 1995 and 2006, passenger numbers doubled from under 15 million per annum to over 30 million, despite the impact of the September 11 attacks in 2001 and 2002. In 1996, the airport overtook Düsseldorf as Germany’s second busiest airport and currently handles almost twice as many passengers as the country’s third busiest airport. However Berlin is expected to catch up once operational as the city's single airport in 2013. Munich Airport serves as Lufthansa’s second hub in Germany besides Frankfurt.
Munich Airport is the second busiest airport in Germany in terms of passenger traffic behind Frankfurt Airport, and the sixth busiest airport in Europe, handling 37,763,701 passengers in 2011. It is the world's 12th busiest airport in terms of international passenger traffic, and was the 27th busiest airport in the world in 2011.
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NASA
Coordinates: 38°52′59″N 77°0′59″W / 38.88306°N 77.01639°W / 38.88306; -77.01639
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research. Since February 2006, NASA's mission statement has been to "pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research." On September 14, 2011, NASA announced that it had selected the design of a new Space Launch System that it said would take the agency's astronauts farther into space than ever before and provide the cornerstone for future human space exploration efforts by the U.S.
NASA was established by the National Aeronautics and Space Act on July 29, 1958, replacing its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). The agency became operational on October 1, 1958. U.S. space exploration efforts have since been led by NASA, including the Apollo moon-landing missions, the Skylab space station, and later the Space Shuttle. Currently, NASA is supporting the International Space Station and is overseeing the development of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle and Commercial Crew vehicles. The agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program (LSP) which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management for unmanned NASA launches.
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NATO
Coordinates: 50°52′34.16″N 4°25′19.24″E / 50.8761556°N 4.4220111°E / 50.8761556; 4.4220111
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO ( /ˈneɪtoʊ/ NAY-toh; French: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique Nord (OTAN)), also called the (North) Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. The organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party. NATO's headquarters are in Brussels, Belgium, one of the 28 member states across North America and Europe, the newest of which, Albania and Croatia, joined in April 2009. An additional 22 countries participate in NATO's Partnership for Peace, with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue programs. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70% of the world's defence spending.
For its first few years, NATO was not much more than a political association. However, the Korean War galvanized the member states, and an integrated military structure was built up under the direction of two U.S. supreme commanders. The course of the Cold War led to a rivalry with nations of the Warsaw Pact, which formed in 1955. The first NATO Secretary General, Lord Ismay, stated in 1949 that the organization's goal was "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down." Doubts over the strength of the relationship between the European states and the United States ebbed and flowed, along with doubts over the credibility of the NATO defence against a prospective Soviet invasion—doubts that led to the development of the independent French nuclear deterrent and the withdrawal of the French from NATO's military structure in 1966.
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Nazi Germany
The Third Reich, also Nazi Germany, is the common name for Germany when it was a totalitarian state ruled by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP). On 30 January 1933 Hitler became chancellor of Germany, quickly eliminating all opposition to rule as sole leader. The state idolized Hitler as its Führer ("leader"), centralizing all power in his hands. Historians have emphasized the hypnotic effect of his rhetoric on large audiences, and of his eyes in small groups. Kessel writes, "Overwhelmingly...Germans speak with mystification of Hitler's 'hypnotic' appeal..." Under the "leader principle", the Führer's word was above all other laws. Top officials reported to Hitler and followed his policies, but they had considerable autonomy. The government was not a coordinated, cooperating body, but rather a collection of factions struggling to amass power and curry favor with the Führer. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazi government restored prosperity and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending and a mixed economy of free-market and central-planning practices. Extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of the Autobahns. The return to prosperity gave the regime enormous popularity; the suppression of all opposition made Hitler's rule mostly unchallenged.
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Netherlands
The Netherlands (i/ˈnɛðərləndz/; Dutch: Nederland [ˈneːdə(r)lɑnt] or [ˈneɪ̯də(r)lɑnt] (
listen); West Frisian: Nederlân; Papiamento: Hulanda) is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with some islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders with Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom. It is a parliamentary democracy organised as a unitary state. The country capital is Amsterdam and the seat of government is The Hague. The Netherlands in its entirety is often referred to as Holland, although North and South Holland are actually only two of its twelve provinces (a case of pars pro toto; see terminology of "the Netherlands").
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Northern Cyprus
The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) (Turkish: Kuzey Kıbrıs Türk Cumhuriyeti), commonly called Northern Cyprus, is a self-declared state that comprises the northeastern part of the island of Cyprus. Recognised only by Turkey, Northern Cyprus is considered by the international community to be occupied territory of the Republic of Cyprus.
Northern Cyprus extends from the tip of the Karpass Peninsula in the north east, westward to Morphou Bay and Cape Kormakitis (the Kokkina/Erenköy exclave marks the westernmost extent of the area), and southward to the village of Louroujina/Akıncılar. A buffer zone under the control of the United Nations stretches between Northern Cyprus and the rest of the island and divides Nicosia, the island's largest city and capital of both states.
Tensions between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot populations in Cyprus culminated in 1974 with a coup d'état, an attempt to annex the island to Greece, and an invasion by Turkey in response. This resulted in the partitioning of the island, the resettlement of many of its inhabitants, and a unilateral declaration of independence by the north in 1983. Due to its lack of recognition, Northern Cyprus is heavily dependent on Turkey for economic, political and military support.
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Norway
Norwayi/ˈnɔrweɪ/ (Norwegian: Norge (Bokmål) or Noreg (Nynorsk)), officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and the subantarctic Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of 385,252 square kilometres (148,747 sq mi) and a population of about 5 million. It is the second least densely populated country in Europe. The majority of the country shares a border to the east with Sweden; its northernmost region is bordered by Finland to the south and Russia to the east; in its south Norway borders the Skagerrak Strait across from Denmark. The capital city of Norway is Oslo. Norway's extensive coastline, facing the North Atlantic Ocean and the Barents Sea, is home to its famous fjords.
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Nuremberg trials
Coordinates: 49°27.2603′N 11°02.9103′E / 49.4543383°N 11.048505°E / 49.4543383; 11.048505 The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany. The trials were held in the city of Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany, in 1945–46, at the Palace of Justice. The first and best known of these trials was the Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal (IMT), which tried 25 of the most important captured leaders of the Third Reich, though several key architects of the war (such as Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, and Joseph Goebbels) had committed suicide before the trials began.
The initial trials were held from November 20, 1945 to October 1, 1946. The second set of trials of lesser war criminals was conducted under Control Council Law No. 10 at the US Nuremberg Military Tribunals (NMT); among them included the Doctors' Trial and the Judges' Trial. This article primarily deals with the IMT; see the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials for details on those trials.
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Oder-Neisse line
The Oder–Neisse line (Polish: granica na Odrze i Nysie Łużyckiej, German: Oder-Neiße-Grenze) is the border between Germany and Poland which was drawn in the aftermath of World War II. The line is formed primarily by the Oder and Lusatian Neisse rivers, and meets the Baltic Sea west of the seaport cities of Szczecin (German: Stettin) and Świnoujście (Swinemünde). All pre-war German territory east of the line (23.8% of the former Weimar Republic lands, most of them from Prussia) was awarded either to Poland or the Soviet Union after the war, and the vast majority of its native German population was killed, fled or was expelled by force. The Oder–Neisse line marked the border between the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and Poland from 1950 to 1990. East Germany confirmed the border with Poland in 1950, while West Germany, after a period of refusal, finally accepted the border in 1970. In 1990 the newly reunified Germany and the Republic of Poland signed a treaty recognizing it as their border.
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Palace of Versailles
The Palace of Versailles ( /vɛərˈsaɪ/ vair-SY or /vərˈsaɪ/; French: [vɛʁˈsaj]), or simply Versailles, is a royal château in Versailles in the Île-de-France region of France. In French it is the Château de Versailles.
When the château was built, Versailles was a country village; today, however, it is a suburb of Paris, some 20 kilometres southwest of the French capital. The court of Versailles was the centre of political power in France from 1682, when Louis XIV moved from Paris, until the royal family was forced to return to the capital in October 1789 after the beginning of the French Revolution. Versailles is therefore famous not only as a building, but as a symbol of the system of absolute monarchy of the Ancien Régime.
The earliest mention of the name of Versailles is in a document dated 1038, relating to the village of Versailles. In 1575, the seigneury of Versailles was bought by Albert de Gondi, a naturalized Florentine, who invited Louis XIII on several hunting trips in the forests surrounding Versailles. Pleased with the location, Louis ordered the construction of a hunting lodge in 1624. Eight years later, Louis obtained the seigneury of Versailles from the Gondi family and began to make enlargements to the château. This structure would become the core of the new palace. Louis XIII's successor, Louis XIV, had it expanded into one of the largest palaces in the world. Following the Treaties of Nijmegen in 1678, he began to gradually move the court to Versailles. The court was officially established there on 6 May 1682.
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Poland
Polandi/ˈpoʊlənd/ (Polish: Polska), officially the Republic of Poland (Polish: Rzeczpospolita Polska; Kashubian: Pòlskô Repùblika; Silesian: Polsko Republika), is a country in Central Europe, bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north. The total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres (120,726 sq mi), making it the 69th largest country in the world and the 9th largest in Europe. Poland has a population of over 38 million people, which makes it the 34th most populous country in the world and the sixth most populous member of the European Union, being its most populous post-communist member. Poland is a unitary state made up of 16 voivodeships. Poland is a member of the European Union, NATO, the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), European Economic Area, International Energy Agency, Council of Europe, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, International Atomic Energy Agency, G6, Council of the Baltic Sea States, Visegrád Group, Weimar Triangle and Schengen Agreement.
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Portugal
Portugali/ˈpɔrtʃʉɡəl/ (Portuguese: Portugal, IPA: [puɾtuˈɣaɫ]), officially the Portuguese Republic (Portuguese: República Portuguesa) is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula . Portugal is the westernmost country of mainland Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira are part of Portugal. The country is named after its second largest city, Porto, whose Latin name was Portus Cale.
The land within the borders of the current Portuguese Republic has been continuously settled since prehistoric times: occupied by Celts like the Gallaeci and the Lusitanians, integrated into the Roman Republic and later settled by Germanic peoples such as the Suebi, Swabians, Vandals and the Visigoths. In the 8th century most of the Iberian Peninsula was conquered by Moorish invaders professing Islam, which were later expelled by the Knights Templar under the Order of Christ. During the Christian Reconquista, Portugal established itself as an independent kingdom from León in 1139, claiming to be the oldest European nation state.
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Reichstag (building)
The Reichstag building (German: Reichstagsgebäude; officially: Plenarbereich Reichstagsgebäude) is a historical edifice in Berlin, Germany, constructed to house the Reichstag, parliament of the German Empire. It was opened in 1894 and housed the Reichstag until 1933, when it was severely damaged in a fire. After World War II, the building fell into disuse, since the parliament of the German Democratic Republic met in the Palace of the Republic in East Berlin and the parliament of the Federal Republic of Germany met in the Bundeshaus in Bonn.
The ruined building was made safe against the elements and partially refurbished in the 1960s, but no attempt at full restoration was made until after German reunification on October 3, 1990, when it underwent a reconstruction led by internationally renowned architect Norman Foster. After its completion in 1999, it once again became the meeting place of the German parliament: the modern Bundestag.
The term Reichstag, when used to connote a parliament, dates back to the Holy Roman Empire. The body meeting in this building -- the Reichstag of the German Empire, then the Weimar Republic and finally Nazi Germany -- ceased to act as a true parliamentary assembly in the years of the Nazi regime (1933–1945). In today's usage, the German word Reichstag refers mainly to the building, while Bundestag refers to the institution.
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Republic of Ireland
Ireland (/ˈaɪərlənd/ or /ˈɑrlənd/; Irish: Éire, pronounced [ˈeːɾʲə] ( listen)) is a sovereign state in Europe occupying about five-sixths of the island of Ireland. Its capital is Dublin. The population of the state was 4.59 million in 2011. It is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy, with an elected president serving as head of state. In the 1937 constitution, the name of the state is given as simply "Ireland". The Constitution of Ireland (Article 4) and the Republic of Ireland Act 1948 provides that the "Republic of Ireland" (Irish: Poblacht na hÉireann) is "the description of the state".
Ireland is a member of the European Union, the Council of Europe, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organisation and the United Nations. A developed country with the seventh highest Human Development Index, Ireland is also highly ranked for press freedom, economic freedom and democracy and political freedom.
The modern Irish state was established in 1922 as the Irish Free State, a dominion within the British Empire, following the Anglo-Irish Treaty which brought an end to the Irish War of Independence. The partition of Ireland had already been provided for in previous British legislation in 1921 in response to opposition to Irish Home Rule or independence by Unionists, who formed a majority in the north-eastern part of the country. Six of the nine counties in the northern province of Ulster were established under that legislation as Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom, with which the Irish state shares its only land border. The state is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the Celtic Sea to the south, St George's Channel to the south east, and the Irish Sea to the east.
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Rhine-Ruhr
The Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region (German: Metropolregion Rhein-Ruhr) is the largest metropolitan region in Germany with over 11 million inhabitants. It is of polycentric nature and the only megacity in Germany. It covers an area of 7,110 square kilometers and lies entirely within the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region spreads from Dortmund-Bochum-Essen-Duisburg (Ruhr Area) in the north, to the urban areas of the cities of Mönchengladbach, Düsseldorf (the state capital), Wuppertal, Cologne (the region's largest and Germany's fourth largest city), and Bonn in the south. The location of the Rhine-Ruhr at the heart of the European "blue banana" makes it well connected to other major European cities and metropolitan areas like Amsterdam and the Randstad, the Flemish Diamond and Frankfurt/Rhine-Main Region.
The metropolitan area is named after the Rhine and Ruhr rivers, which are the regions's defining geographical features and historically its economic backbone.
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Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate is one of the 16 states of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has an area of 19,846 square kilometres (7,663 sq mi) and about four million inhabitants. The capital is Mainz.English-speakers also commonly refer to the state by its German name, Rheinland-Pfalz (pronounced [ˈʁaɪnlant ˈpfalts]).
The state of Rhineland-Palatinate was established on 30 August 1946. It was formed from the northern part of the French Occupation Zone, which included parts of Bavaria (the Rhenish Palatinate), the southern parts of the Prussian Rhine Province (including the District of Birkenfeld which formerly belonged to Oldenburg), parts of the Prussian Province of Nassau (see Hesse-Nassau), and parts of Hesse-Darmstadt (Rhinehessen on the western banks of the Rhine); the constitution was legally confirmed by referendum on 18 May 1947.
Situated in western Germany, Rhineland-Palatinate borders (from the north and clockwise) North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse, Baden-Württemberg, France, Saarland, Luxembourg and Belgium.
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Romania
Romania (i/roʊˈmeɪniə/ roh-MAY-nee-ə; dated: Roumania; or Rumania;Romanian: România [romɨˈni.a] ( listen)) is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea. Romania shares a border with Hungary and Serbia to the west, Ukraine and Moldova to the northeast and east, and Bulgaria to the south.
At 238,400 square kilometers (92,000 sq mi), Romania is the ninth largest country of the European Union by area, and has the seventh largest population of the European Union with over 19 million people. Its capital and largest city is Bucharest, the tenth largest city in the EU with about two million people.
The Kingdom of Romania emerged when the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia were united under Prince Alexander Ioan Cuza in 1859. Independence from the Ottoman Empire was declared on 9 May 1877, and was internationally recognized the following year. At the end of World War I, Transylvania, Bukovina and Bessarabia united with the Kingdom of Romania. Greater Romania emerged into an era of progression and prosperity that would continue until World War II. By the end of the War, many north-eastern areas of Romania's territories were occupied by the Soviet Union, and Romania forcibly became a socialist republic and a member of the Warsaw Pact.
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Russia
Russiai/ˈrʌʃə/ or /ˈrʊʃə/ (Russian: Россия, tr. Rossiya; IPA: [rɐˈsʲijə] ( listen)), also officially known as the Russian Federation (Russian: Российская Федерация, tr. Rossiyskaya Federatsiya; IPA: [rɐˈsʲijskəjə fʲɪdʲɪˈratsɨjə] ( listen)), is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects. From northwest to southeast, Russia shares borders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland (both via Kaliningrad Oblast), Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, and North Korea. It also has maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, and the US state of Alaska by the Bering Strait. At 17,075,400 square kilometres (6,592,800 sq mi), Russia is the largest country in the world, covering more than one eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area. Russia is also the eighth most populous nation with 143 million people. It extends across the whole of northern Asia and 40% of Europe, spanning nine time zones and incorporating a wide range of environments and landforms. Russia has the world's largest reserves of mineral and energy resources and is the largest producer of oil and natural gas globally. Russia has the world's largest forest reserves and its lakes contain approximately one-quarter of the world's fresh water.
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Saarland
Saarland (German pronunciation: [ˈzaːɐlant]; French: Sarre, IPA: [saʁ]) is one of the sixteen states of Germany. The capital is Saarbrücken. It has an area of 2570 km² and 1,045,000 inhabitants. In both area and population, it is the smallest state in Germany other than the city-states (Berlin, Bremen and Hamburg). Its location on the border between France and Germany has given Saarland a unique history.
The Saar did not exist as a unified entity until its creation as the Territory of the Saar Basin by the League of Nations after World War I. Prior to this, some parts of the current entity were Prussian and other parts Bavarian. The inhabitants voted to rejoin Germany in a plebiscite in 1935.
From 1947 to 1956 the Saar was a French-occupied territory (the "Saar Protectorate") separate from the rest of Germany. In 1955 the inhabitants were offered independence in a plebiscite, but instead voted to become a state of West Germany. From 1920 to 1935, and then from 1947 to 1959, the inhabitants used postage stamps issued specially for the territory; see postage stamps and postal history of the Saar for details. Between 1950 and 1956, Saarland was a member of the Council of Europe.
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San Marino
San Marino, officially the Republic of San Marino (i/sæn məˈriːnoʊ/ san-mə-REE-noh; Italian: Repubblica di San Marino) and also known as the Most Serene Republic of San Marino (Italian: Serenissima Repubblica di San Marino), is a state situated on the Italian Peninsula on the eastern side of the Apennine Mountains. It is an enclave surrounded by Italy. Its size is just over 61 km2 (24 sq mi) with an estimated population of over 30,000. Its capital is the City of San Marino. San Marino has the smallest population of all the members of the Council of Europe.
San Marino is the oldest surviving sovereign state and constitutional republic in the world, as the continuation of the monastic community founded on 3 September 301, by stonecutter Marinus of Rab. Legend has it that Marinus left Rab, then the Roman colony of Arba, in 257 when the future emperor, Diocletian, issued a decree calling for the reconstruction of the city walls of Rimini, which had been destroyed by Liburnian pirates.
The constitution of San Marino, enacted in 1600, is the world's oldest constitution still in effect. The country's economy mainly relies on finance, industry, services and tourism. It is one of the wealthiest countries in the world in terms of GDP (per capita), with a figure comparable to some of the more developed Italian regions, such as Lombardy and Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. San Marino is considered to have a highly stable economy, with one of the lowest unemployment rates in Europe, no national debt and a budget surplus.
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Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia (i/ˌsaʊdi əˈreɪbi.ə/ or i/ˌsɔːdiː əˈreɪbi.ə/; Arabic: السعودية as-Su‘ūdīyah[citation needed] or incorrectly as-Sa‘ūdīyah, officially known as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Arabic: المملكة العربية السعودية al-Mamlakah al-‘Arabīyah as-Su‘ūdīyah Arabic pronunciation (help·info)), is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab world, after Algeria. It is bordered by Jordan, and Iraq on the north and northeast, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates on the east, Oman on the southeast, and Yemen on the south. The Red Sea lies to its west, and the Persian Gulf lies to the east. Saudi Arabia has an area of approximately 2,250,000 km2 (870,000 sq mi), and it has an estimated population of 27 million, of which 9 million are registered foreign expatriates and an estimated 2 million are illegal immigrants. Saudi nationals comprise an estimated 16 million people.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded by Abdul-Aziz bin Saud (known for most of his career as Ibn Saud) in 1932, although the conquests which eventually led to the creation of the Kingdom began in 1902 when he captured Riyadh, the ancestral home of his family, the House of Saud, referred to in Arabic as the Al Saud. The Saudi Arabian government, which has been an absolute monarchy since its inception, refers to its system of government as being Islamic, though this is contested by many due to its strong basis in Salafism, a minority school of thought in Islam. The kingdom is sometimes called "The Land of the Two Holy Mosques" in reference to Al-Masjid al-Haram (in Mecca), and Al-Masjid al-Nabawi (in Medina), the two holiest places in Islam.
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Saxony
The Free State of Saxony (German: Freistaat Sachsen [ˈfʁaɪʃtaːt ˈzaksən]; Upper Sorbian: Swobodny stat Sakska) is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with (18,413 square kilometres (7,109 sq mi), and the sixth most-populous (4.3 million) of Germany's sixteen states.
Located in the middle of an erstwhile German-speaking part of Europe, the history of the state of Saxony spans more than a millennium. It has been a medieval duchy, an electorate of the Holy Roman Empire, a kingdom, a republic from 1918 to 1952 and then again from 1990.
The area of the modern state of Saxony should not be confused with Old Saxony, the area inhabited by Saxons. Old Saxony corresponds approximately to the modern German states of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and the Westphalian part of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Sachsen is divided into three Direktionsbezirke — Chemnitz, Dresden, Leipzig — which are subdivided into 10 districts:
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Saxony-Anhalt
Saxony-Anhalt (German: Sachsen-Anhalt, pronounced [ˌzaksən ˈanhalt], Low German: Sassen-Anholt) is a landlocked state of Germany. Its capital is Magdeburg and it is surrounded by the German states of Lower Saxony, Brandenburg, Saxony, and Thuringia.
Saxony-Anhalt covers an area of 20,447.7 square kilometres (7,894.9 sq mi). It has a population of 2.34 million (more than 2.8 million in 1990).
Saxony-Anhalt should not be confused with Saxony or Lower Saxony, also German states.
Saxony-Anhalt is one of 16 states of Germany. It is located in the western part of eastern Germany. By size, it is the 8th largest state in Germany, and by population, the 10th largest.
In the north, the Saxony-Anhalt landscape is dominated by plain (North German Plain). The old Hanseatic towns Salzwedel, Gardelegen, Stendal, or Tangermünde are located in the sparsely populated Altmark. The Colbitz-Letzlingen Heath and the Drömling near Wolfsburg mark the transition between the Altmark region and the Elbe-Börde-Heath region with its fertile, sparsely wooded Magdeburg Börde. Notable towns in the Magdeburg Börde are Haldensleben, Oschersleben (Bode), Wanzleben, Schönebeck (Elbe), Aschersleben and the capital Magdeburg, from which the Börde derives its name.
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Schleswig-Holstein
Schleswig-Holstein (pronounced [ˈʃleːsvɪç ˈhɔlʃtaɪn] ( listen)) is the northernmost of the sixteen states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Schleswig. Its capital city is Kiel; other notable cities are Lübeck, Flensburg and Neumünster.
The former English name was Sleswick-Holsatia, the Danish name is Slesvig-Holsten, the Low German name is Sleswig-Holsteen, the Dutch name is Sleeswijk-Holstein and the North Frisian name is Slaswik-Holstiinj. Historically, the name can also refer to a larger region, containing both present-day Schleswig-Holstein and the former South Jutland County (Northern Schleswig) in Denmark.
The term "Holstein" derives from Old Saxon, Holseta Land, meaning "the land of those who dwell in the wood" (Holz and Holt mean wood in modern Standardised German and in literary English respectively). Originally, it referred to the central of the three Saxon tribes north of the Elbe river, Tedmarsgoi, Holcetae, and Sturmarii. The area of the Holcetae was between the Stör river and Hamburg, and after Christianization their main church was in Schenefeld. Saxon Holstein became a part of the Holy Roman Empire after Charlemagne's Saxon campaigns in the late eighth century. Since 811 the northern frontier of Holstein (and thus the Empire) was marked by the river Eider.
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Serbia
Serbiai/ˈsɜrbiə/, officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: Република Србија / Republika Srbija, pronounced [rɛpǔblika sř̩bija]), is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans. Serbia borders Hungary to the north; Romania and Bulgaria to the east; the Republic of Macedonia to the south; and Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro to the west; additionally, it borders Albania through Kosovo, whose status as part of Serbia is disputed. Serbia covers an area of 88,361 km2 and has a population of just over 7.1 million, while the capital and largest city is Belgrade.
The arrival of the Serbs to the Balkans in the 7th century, established several states, eventually forming the Serbian Empire in the 14th century. By the 16th century, Serbia was conquered and occupied by the Ottoman Empire, at times interrupted by the Habsburgs. In the early 19th century the Serbian revolution re-established the country as the region's first constitutional monarchy, which subsequently expanded its territory and pioneered the abolition of feudalism in the Balkans. The former Habsburg crownland of Vojvodina united with Serbia in 1918. Following World War I, Serbia formed Yugoslavia with other South Slavic peoples which existed in several forms up until 2006, when the National Assembly of Serbia declared independence and the legal succession to the former State Union. In February 2008 the parliament of UNMIK-governed Kosovo, Serbia's southern province, declared independence, with mixed responses from international governments.
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Slovakia
The Slovak Republic (short form: Slovakiai/sloʊˈvɑːkiə/ or /sləˈvækiə/; Slovak: Slovensko (help·info), long form Slovenská republika (help·info)) is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about 49,000 square kilometres (19,000 sq mi). Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south. The largest city is the capital, Bratislava, and the second largest is Košice. Slovakia is a member state of the European Union, NATO, United Nations, OECD and WTO among others. The official language is Slovak, a member of the Slavic language family.
The Slavs arrived in the territory of present day Slovakia in the 5th and 6th centuries during the migration period. In the course of history, various parts of today's Slovakia belonged to Samo's Empire (the first known political unit of Slavs), Principality of Nitra (as independent polity, as part of Great Moravia and as part of Hungarian Kingdom), Great Moravia, Kingdom of Hungary, the Austro-Hungarian Empire or Habsburg Empire, and Czechoslovakia. A separate Slovak state briefly existed during World War II, during which Slovakia was a dependency of Nazi Germany between 1939 and 1944. From 1945 Slovakia once again became a part of Czechoslovakia. The present-day Slovakia became an independent state on 1 January 1993 after the peaceful dissolution of Czechoslovakia.
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Slovenia
Slovenia (i/sloʊˈviːniə/ sloh-VEE-nee-ə, Slovene: Slovenija), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Republika Slovenija, [reˈpublika sloˈveːnija]) is a Slavic nation state, situated in South-Central Europe, at the crossroad of main European cultural and trade routes. It borders Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Croatia to the south and southeast, and Hungary to the northeast. It covers 20,273 square kilometres (7,827 sq mi) and has a population of 2.05 million. It is a parliamentary republic, member of the European Union and NATO. Relative to its geography, history, economy, culture, and language, it is a very diverse country distinguished by a transitional character. It is characterised by a high economic and social level. Its capital and largest city is Ljubljana.
The territory of Slovenia is mainly hilly or mountainous and has an exceptionally high landscape and biological diversity and a mosaic structure, which are a result of natural attributes and the long-lasting presence of humans. Four major European geographic units interweave here: the Alps, the Dinaric Alps, the Mediterranean, with a small portion of coastline along the Adriatic Sea, and the Pannonian Plain. The climate is temperate and significantly influenced by the variety of territory, with a strong interaction of the continental climate, the sub-Mediterranean climate and Alpine climate across most of the country. The country is one of the water-richest in Europe, with a dense river network, a rich aquifer system, and significant karstic underground watercourses. Over half of the territory is covered by forest.
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South Africa
Coordinates: 30°S 25°E / 30°S 25°E / -30; 25
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa, is a country located at the southern tip of Africa. It is divided into nine provinces and has 2,798 kilometres (1,739 mi) of coastline. To the north of the country lie the neighbouring territories of Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe; to the east are Mozambique and Swaziland; while Lesotho is an enclave surrounded by South African territory.
South Africa is multi-ethnic and has diverse cultures and languages. Eleven official languages are recognised in the constitution. Two of these languages are of European origin: South African English and Afrikaans, a language which originated mainly from Dutch that is spoken by the majority of white and Coloured South Africans. Though English is commonly used in public and commercial life, it is only the fifth most-spoken home language. All ethnic and language groups have political representation in the country's constitutional democracy comprising a parliamentary republic; unlike most parliamentary republics, the positions of head of state and head of government are merged in a parliament-dependent President.
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South Korea
South Korea ( listen), officially the Republic of Korea (Hangul: 대한민국; Hanja: 大韓民國; Daehan Minguk listen), is a sovereign state in the southern part of the Korean Peninsula. The name "Korea" is derived from Goryeo, a dynasty which ruled in the Middle Ages (an initial "G" in Korean is pronounced like an English "K").
Its neighbors are China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the Korea Strait to the south. South Korea lies in the north temperate zone with a predominantly mountainous terrain. It covers a total area of 99,392 square kilometers and has a population of almost 50 million. The capital and largest city is Seoul, with a population of 9,794,304.
Archaeological findings show that the Korean Peninsula was occupied by the Lower Paleolithic period.Korean history begins with the founding of Gojoseon in 2333 BC by the legendary Dan-gun. Following the unification of the Three Kingdoms of Korea under Silla 668 AD, Korea went through the Goryeo Dynasty and Joseon Dynasty as one nation until the end of the Korean Empire in 1910, when it was annexed by Japan. After liberation and occupation by Soviet and U.S. forces at the end of World War II, the nation was divided into North and South Korea. The latter was established in 1948 as a democracy, though political turmoil and times of military rule and martial law characterized much of the period until the foundation of the Sixth Republic in 1987.
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South Ossetia
South Ossetia ( /əˈsɛtiə/ə-SET-ee-ə or /ɒˈsiːʃə/o-SEE-shə; Ossetic: Хуссар Ирыстон, Xussar Iryston; Georgian: სამხრეთ ოსეთი, Samxret Oseti; Russian: Южная Осетия, Yuzhnaya Osetiya) or Tskhinvali Region (Georgian: ცხინვალის რეგიონი, Tsxinvalis regioni; Russian: Цхинвальский регион, Tskhinvalskiy region) is a disputed region and partly recognized state in the South Caucasus, located in the territory of the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast within the former Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic.
South Ossetians declared independence from Georgia in 1990, calling themselves the Republic of South Ossetia. The Georgian government responded by abolishing South Ossetia's autonomy and trying to retake the region by force. This led to the 1991–1992 South Ossetia War. Georgian fighting against those controlling South Ossetia occurred on two other occasions, in 2004 and 2008. The last conflict led to the 2008 South Ossetia war, during which Ossetian and Russian forces gained full, de facto control of the territory of the former South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast.
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Soviet
The Soviet Union (Russian: Советский Союз, tr. Sovetsky Soyuz), officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR; Russian: Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик, tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik; IPA: [sɐˈjus sɐˈvʲetskʲɪx sətsɨəlʲɪˈstʲitɕɪskʲɪx rʲɪsˈpublʲɪk] ( listen); abbreviated СССР, SSSR), was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991.
The Soviet Union was a single-party state ruled by the Communist Party from its foundation until 1990. A union of 15 subnational Soviet republics, the Soviet state was structured under a highly centralized government and economy.
The Russian Revolution of 1917 caused the downfall of the Russian Empire. Following the Russian Revolution, there was a struggle for power between the Bolshevik party, led by Vladimir Lenin, and the anti-communist White movement. In December 1922, the Bolsheviks won the civil war, and the Soviet Union was formed with the merger of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.
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Spain
Spain (i/ˈspeɪn/ SPAYN; Spanish: España, pronounced: [esˈpaɲa] ( listen)), officially the Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: Reino de España), is a sovereign state and a member of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Its mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar; to the north and north east by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; and to the northwest and west by the Atlantic Ocean and Portugal.
Spanish territory also includes the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean, the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean off the African coast, and two autonomous cities in North Africa, Ceuta and Melilla, that border Morocco. Furthermore, the town of Llívia is a Spanish exclave situated inside French territory. With an area of 504,030 square kilometres (194,610 sq mi), it is the second largest country in Western Europe and the European Union after France, and the fourth largest country in Europe after Russia, Ukraine and France.
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Sweden
Sweden (i/ˈswiːdən/ SWEE-dən; Swedish: Sverige [ˈsværjɛ] ( listen)), officially the Kingdom of Sweden (Swedish: Konungariket Sverige (help·info)), is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland, and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Øresund.
At 450,295 square kilometres (173,860 sq mi), Sweden is the third largest country in the European Union by area, with a total population of about 9.4 million. Sweden has a low population density of 21 inhabitants per square kilometre (54 /sq mi) with the population mostly concentrated to the southern half of the country. About 85% of the population live in urban areas. Sweden's capital city is Stockholm, which is also the largest city.
Sweden emerged as an independent and unified country during the Middle Ages. In the 17th century, the country expanded its territories to form the Swedish Empire. The empire grew to be one of the great powers of Europe in the 17th and early 18th century. Most of the conquered territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were lost during the 18th and 19th centuries. The eastern half of Sweden, present-day Finland, was lost to Russia in 1809. The last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814, when Sweden by military means forced Norway into a personal union. Since then, Sweden has been at peace, practicing "non-participation in military alliances during peacetime and neutrality during wartime". However, Sweden has been a member of the European Union since 1 January 1995 and is a member of the OECD.
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Switzerland
Switzerland (German: die Schweiz[ˈʃvaɪts]; French: Suisse [sɥis(ə)]; Italian: Svizzera [ˈzvit͡sːɛra]; Romansh: Svizra [ˈʒviːtsrɐ] or [ˈʒviːtsʁːɐ]), in its full name the Swiss Confederation (Latin: Confoederatio Helvetica, hence its abbreviation CH), is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in western Europe, where it is bordered by Germany to the north, France to the west, Italy to the south, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east.
Switzerland is a landlocked country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning an area of 41,285 km2 (15,940 sq mi). While the Alps occupy the greater part of the territory, the Swiss population of approximately 8 million people is concentrated mostly on the Plateau, where the largest cities are to be found. Among them are the two global cities and economic centres of Zurich and Geneva.
The Swiss Confederation has a long history of armed neutrality—it has not been in a state of war internationally since 1815—and did not join the United Nations until 2002. It pursues, however, an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in peace-building processes around the world. Switzerland is also the birthplace of the Red Cross and home to a large number of international organizations, including the second largest UN office. On the European level, it is a founding member of the European Free Trade Association and is part of the Schengen Area – although it is notably not a member of the European Union, nor the European Economic Area.
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Sylt
Coordinates: 54°54′N 8°20′E / 54.9°N 8.333°E / 54.9; 8.333
Sylt (German pronunciation: [ˈzʏlt]; Danish: Sild; Söl'ring North Frisian: Söl' ) is an island in northern Germany, part of Nordfriesland district, Schleswig-Holstein, and well known for the distinctive shape of its shoreline. It belongs to the North Frisian Islands and is the largest island in North Frisia. The northernmost island of Germany, it is known for its tourist resorts, notably Westerland, Kampen and Wenningstedt-Braderup, as well as for its 40 km long sandy beach. It is frequently covered by the media in connection with its exposed situation in the North Sea and its ongoing loss of land during storm tides. Since 1927, Sylt has been connected to the mainland by the Hindenburgdamm causeway.
With 99.14 km², Sylt is the fourth-largest German island and the largest German North Sea island. Sylt is situated at 9 to 16 km off the mainland, being connected there by the Hindenburgdamm. Southeast of Sylt the islands Föhr and Amrum are located, to the north lies the Danish island Rømø. The island of Sylt extends for 38 km in a north-south direction and on its northern peak at Königshafen is only 320 m wide. Its widest distance, from the town of Westerland in the west to the eastern Nössespitze near Morsum, measures 12.6 km. On the western and northwestern shore a 40 km sand beach is located, east of Sylt the Wadden Sea is situated, which belongs to the Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea National Park and mostly falls dry during low tide.
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Tajikistan
Tajikistan (i/tɑːˈdʒiːkɨstɑːn/, /təˈdʒiːkɨstæn/, or /tæˈdʒiːkiːstæn/; Тоҷикистон [ˈtɔjikɪsˈtɔn]), officially the Republic of Tajikistan (Tajik: Ҷумҳурии Тоҷикистон, Cumhuriyi Tocikiston; Persian: جمهوری تاجیکستان Jomhuri-ye Tajikestan; Russian: Республика Таджикистан, Respublika Tadzhikistan), is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia. It borders Afghanistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east. Gilgit Baltistan as well as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa of Pakistan are separated from Tajikistan by the narrow Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan in the south.
Most of Tajikistan's population belongs to the Persian-speaking Tajik ethnic group, who share language, culture and history with Afghanistan and Iran. Once part of the Samanid Empire, Tajikistan became a constituent republic of the Soviet Union in the 20th century, known as the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic (Tajik SSR). Mountains cover over 90% of this Central Asian republic.
After independence, Tajikistan suffered from a devastating civil war which lasted from 1992 to 1997. Since the end of the war, newly established political stability and foreign aid have allowed the country's economy to grow. Trade in commodities such as cotton, aluminium and uranium has contributed greatly to this steady improvement.
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Thailand
Thailand ( /ˈtaɪlænd/ TY-land or /ˈtaɪlənd/;Thai: ประเทศไทย, RTGS: Prathet Thai), officially the Kingdom of Thailand (Thai: ราชอาณาจักรไทย, RTGS: Ratcha Anachak Thai; IPA: [râːt.tɕʰā ʔāːnāːtɕàk tʰāj] ( listen)), formerly known as Siam (Thai: สยาม; RTGS: Sayam), is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the west by the Andaman Sea and the southern extremity of Burma. Its maritime boundaries include Vietnam in the Gulf of Thailand to the southeast, and Indonesia and India in the Andaman Sea to the southwest.
The country is a constitutional monarchy, headed by King Rama IX, the ninth king of the House of Chakri, who, having reigned since 1946, is the world's longest-serving head of state and the longest-reigning monarch in Thai history. The king of Thailand is titled Head of State, Head of the Armed Forces, the Upholder of the Buddhist religion, and the Defender of all Faiths.
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Third Reich
The Third Reich, also Nazi Germany, is the common name for Germany when it was a totalitarian state ruled by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP). On 30 January 1933 Hitler became chancellor of Germany, quickly eliminating all opposition to rule as sole leader. The state idolized Hitler as its Führer ("leader"), centralizing all power in his hands. Historians have emphasized the hypnotic effect of his rhetoric on large audiences, and of his eyes in small groups. Kessel writes, "Overwhelmingly...Germans speak with mystification of Hitler's 'hypnotic' appeal..." Under the "leader principle", the Führer's word was above all other laws. Top officials reported to Hitler and followed his policies, but they had considerable autonomy. The government was not a coordinated, cooperating body, but rather a collection of factions struggling to amass power and curry favor with the Führer. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazi government restored prosperity and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending and a mixed economy of free-market and central-planning practices. Extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of the Autobahns. The return to prosperity gave the regime enormous popularity; the suppression of all opposition made Hitler's rule mostly unchallenged.
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Thuringia
The Free State of Thuringia (German: Freistaat Thüringen, pronounced [ˈfʁaɪʃtaːt ˈtyːʁɪŋən], English /θjʊərˈrɪndʒiə/) is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country. It has an area of 16,171 square kilometres (6,244 sq mi) and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states. Most of Thuringia is within the watershed of the Saale, a left tributary of the Elbe. Its capital is Erfurt.
Thuringia has been known by the nickname of "the green heart of Germany" (das grüne Herz Deutschlands) from the late 19th century, due to the dense forest that covers the terrain.
Thuringia is well known in Germany for nature and winter sports. It is home to the Rennsteig, Germany's most famous hiking trail, and the winter resort of Oberhof. Germany has won more Winter Olympics gold medals than any other country in the last 20 years, and half of Germany's gold medals have been won by Thuringian athletes.
From the northwest going clockwise, Thuringia borders on the German states of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony, Bavaria and Hesse. The ridges of the western Harz Mountains divide the region from Lower Saxony on the north-west, while the eastern Harz similarly separates Thuringia from the state of Saxony-Anhalt to the north-east. To the south and southwest, the Thuringian Forest effectively separates the ancient region of Franconia, now the northern part of Bavaria, from the rolling plains of most of Thuringia. The central Harz range extends southwards along the western side into the northwest corner of the Thuringian Forest region, making Thuringia a lowland basin of rolling plains nearly surrounded by ancient somewhat-difficult mountains. To the west across the mountains and south is the drainage basin of the Rhine River.
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Transnistria
Transnistria (also called "Trans-Dniestr" or "Transdniestria") is a breakaway territory located mostly on a strip of land between the Dniester River and the eastern Moldovan border to Ukraine. Since its declaration of independence in 1990, and especially after the War of Transnistria in 1992, it is governed as the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (PMR, also known as "Pridnestrovie"), a state with limited recognition which claims the territory to the east of the river Dniester, the city of Bender and its surrounding localities located on the west bank. The Republic of Moldova does not recognize the secession and considers the territories controlled by the PMR to be part of Moldova's autonomous region of Stînga Nistrului ("Left Bank of the Dniester").
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Turkey
Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye), known officially as the Republic of Turkey ( Türkiye Cumhuriyeti (help·info)), is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia (mostly in the Anatolian peninsula) and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe. Turkey is bordered by eight countries: Bulgaria to the northwest; Greece to the west; Georgia to the northeast; Armenia, Azerbaijan (the exclave of Nakhchivan) and Iran to the east; and Iraq and Syria to the southeast. The Mediterranean Sea and Cyprus are to the south; the Aegean Sea is to the west; and the Black Sea is to the north. The Sea of Marmara, the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles (which together form the Turkish Straits) demarcate the boundary between East Thrace and Anatolia; they also separate Europe and Asia.
Turkey is one of the six independent Turkic states. The vast majority of the population are Muslims. The country's official language is Turkish, whereas Kurdish and Zazaki languages are spoken by Kurds and Zazas, who constitute 18% of the population.
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Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan (i/tɜrkˈmɛnɨstæn/ or i/tɜrkmɛnɨˈstɑːn/; Turkmen: Türkmenistan), formerly also known as Turkmenia (Russian: Туркмения), is one of the Turkic states in Central Asia. Until 1991, it was a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic (Turkmen SSR). Turkmenistan is one of the six independent Turkic states. It is bordered by Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the south and southwest, Uzbekistan to the east and northeast, Kazakhstan to the north and northwest and the Caspian Sea to the west.
Turkmenistan's GDP growth rate of 11% in 2010[update] ranks 4th in the world, but these figures are subject to wide margins of error. It possesses the world's fourth largest reserves of natural gas resources. Although it is wealthy in natural resources in certain areas, most of the country is covered by the Karakum (Black Sand) Desert.
The Turkmen government operates as a single-party system. Turkmenistan was ruled by President for Life Saparmurat Niyazov (called "Türkmenbaşy" — "leader of the Turkmens") until his sudden death on 21 December 2006. Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov was elected the new president on 11 February 2007.
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Ukraine
Ukraine (i/juːˈkreɪn/ yew-KRAYN; Ukrainian: Україна, transliterated: Ukrayina, [ukrɑˈjinɑ]; Russian: Украина; Crimean Tatar: Ukraina) is a country in Central and Eastern Europe. Ukraine borders the Russian Federation to the east and northeast, Belarus to the northwest, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary to the west, Romania and Moldova to the southwest, and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south and southeast, respectively. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after the Russian Federation.
According to a popular and well established theory, the medieval state of Kievan Rus was established by the Varangians in the 9th century as the first historically recorded East Slavic state which emerged as a powerful nation in the Middle Ages until it disintegrated in the 12th century. By the middle of the 14th century, Ukrainian territories were under the rule of three external powers—the Golden Horde, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Kingdom of Poland. After the Great Northern War (1700–1721) Ukraine was divided between a number of regional powers and, by the 19th century, the largest part of Ukraine was integrated into the Russian Empire with the rest under Austro-Hungarian control. A chaotic period of incessant warfare ensued, with several internationally recognized attempts at independence from 1917 to 1921, following World War I and the Russian Civil War. Ukraine emerged from its own civil war, and on December 30, 1922 Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic became one of the founding republics of the Soviet Union. The Ukrainian SSR's territory was enlarged westward during the civil war shortly before, and after World War II, and further south in 1954 with the Crimea transfer. In 1945, the Ukrainian SSR became one of the founding members of the United Nations.
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United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK, or Britain) is a sovereign state located off the north-western coast of continental Europe. The country includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border the UK is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel and the Irish Sea.
The United Kingdom is a unitary state governed under a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system, with its seat of government in the capital city of London. It is a country in its own right and consists of four countries: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. There are three devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in Belfast, Edinburgh and Cardiff, the capitals of Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Associated with the UK, but not constitutionally part of it, are three Crown Dependencies. The United Kingdom has fourteen overseas territories. These are remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in 1922, encompassed almost a quarter of the world's land surface and was the largest empire in history. British influence can still be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former territories.
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United States
The United States of America (commonly abbreviated to the United States, the U.S., the USA, America, and the States) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west, across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories in the Pacific and Caribbean.
At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km2) and with over 312 million people, the United States is the third or fourth largest country by total area, and the third largest by both land area and population. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries. The U.S. economy is the world's largest national economy, with an estimated 2011 GDP of $15.1 trillion (22% of nominal global GDP and over 19% of global GDP at purchasing-power parity). Per capita income is the world's sixth-highest.
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Ural Mountains
The Ural Mountains (Bashkir: Урал тауҙары, Russian: Ура́льские го́ры, Uralskiye gory, or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through western Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the Ural River and northwestern Kazakhstan. Their eastern side is usually considered the natural boundary between Europe and Asia. Vaygach Island and the islands of Novaya Zemlya form a further continuation of the chain to the north into the Arctic.
The mountains lie within the Ural geographical region and significantly overlap with the Ural Federal District and Ural economic region. They are rich in various deposits, including metal ores, coal, precious and semi-precious stones, and since the 18th century have been the major mineral base of Russia.
As attested by Sigismund von Herberstein, in the 16th century Russians called the range by a variety of names derived from the Russian words for rock (stone) and belt. The modern Russian name for the Urals (Урал, Ural), first appearing in the 16th-17th century when the Russian expansion into Siberia was in its heroic phase, was initially applied to its southern parts and gained currency as the name of the entire range during the 18th century. It might be a borrowing from either Turkic (Bashkir, where the same name is used for the range), or Ob-Ugric. From the 13th century, in Bashkortostan there has been a legend about a hero named Ural. He sacrificed his life for the sake of his people and they poured a stone pile over his grave which later turned into the Ural Mountains.
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USSR
The Soviet Union (Russian: Советский Союз, tr. Sovetsky Soyuz), officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR; Russian: Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик, tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik; IPA: [sɐˈjus sɐˈvʲetskʲɪx sətsɨəlʲɪˈstʲitɕɪskʲɪx rʲɪsˈpublʲɪk] ( listen); abbreviated СССР, SSSR), was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991.
The Soviet Union was a single-party state ruled by the Communist Party from its foundation until 1990. A union of 15 subnational Soviet republics, the Soviet state was structured under a highly centralized government and economy.
The Russian Revolution of 1917 caused the downfall of the Russian Empire. Following the Russian Revolution, there was a struggle for power between the Bolshevik party, led by Vladimir Lenin, and the anti-communist White movement. In December 1922, the Bolsheviks won the civil war, and the Soviet Union was formed with the merger of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.
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Uzbekistan
Uzbekistani/ʊzˌbɛkɨˈstɑːn/, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan (Uzbek: O‘zbekiston Respublikasi, Ўзбекистон Республикаси) is the only doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of only two such countries worldwide. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south. Before 1991, it was part of the Soviet Union.
Uzbekistan is one of the Turkic states in Central Asia.
Once part of the Persian Samanid and later Timurid empires, the region was conquered in the early 16th century by Uzbek nomads, who spoke an Eastern Turkic language. Most of Uzbekistan’s population today belong to the Uzbek ethnic group and speak the Uzbek language, one of the family of Turkic languages.
Uzbekistan was incorporated into the Russian Empire in the 19th century, and in 1924 became a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, known as the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (Uzbek SSR). It became independent on 31 August 1991 (officially, from the following day).
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Vatican City
Vatican Cityi/ˈvætɨkən ˈsɪti/, or Vatican City State, in Italian officially Stato della Città del Vaticano (pronounced [ˈstaːto della t͡ʃitˈta del vatiˈkaːno]), is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, Italy. It has an area of approximately 44 hectares (110 acres), and a population of just over 800. This makes Vatican City the smallest independent state in the world by both area and population.
Vatican City State was established in 1929 by the Lateran Treaty, signed by Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Gasparri, on behalf of Pope Pius XI and by Prime Minister and Head of Government Benito Mussolini on behalf of King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy. Vatican City State is distinct from the Holy See, which dates back to early Christianity and is the main episcopal see of 1.2 billion Latin and Eastern Catholic adherents around the globe. Ordinances of Vatican City are published in Italian; official documents of the Holy See are issued mainly in Latin. The two entities have distinct passports: the Holy See, not being a country, issues only diplomatic and service passports, whereas Vatican City State issues normal passports. In each case very few passports are issued.
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Versailles
The Palace of Versailles ( /vɛərˈsaɪ/ vair-SY or /vərˈsaɪ/; French: [vɛʁˈsaj]), or simply Versailles, is a royal château in Versailles in the Île-de-France region of France. In French it is the Château de Versailles.
When the château was built, Versailles was a country village; today, however, it is a suburb of Paris, some 20 kilometres southwest of the French capital. The court of Versailles was the centre of political power in France from 1682, when Louis XIV moved from Paris, until the royal family was forced to return to the capital in October 1789 after the beginning of the French Revolution. Versailles is therefore famous not only as a building, but as a symbol of the system of absolute monarchy of the Ancien Régime.
The earliest mention of the name of Versailles is in a document dated 1038, relating to the village of Versailles. In 1575, the seigneury of Versailles was bought by Albert de Gondi, a naturalized Florentine, who invited Louis XIII on several hunting trips in the forests surrounding Versailles. Pleased with the location, Louis ordered the construction of a hunting lodge in 1624. Eight years later, Louis obtained the seigneury of Versailles from the Gondi family and began to make enlargements to the château. This structure would become the core of the new palace. Louis XIII's successor, Louis XIV, had it expanded into one of the largest palaces in the world. Following the Treaties of Nijmegen in 1678, he began to gradually move the court to Versailles. The court was officially established there on 6 May 1682.
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Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic (Weimarer Republik [ˈvaɪmaʁɐ ʁepuˈbliːk] ( listen)) is the name given by historians to the federal republic and parliamentary representative democracy established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government. It was named after Weimar, the city where the constitutional assembly took place. Its official name was German Reich (Deutsches Reich)
Following World War I, the republic emerged from the German Revolution in November 1918. In 1919, a national assembly convened in Weimar, where a new constitution for the German Reich was written, then adopted on 11 August of that same year. The ensuing period of liberal democracy lapsed in the early 1930s, leading to the ascent of the nascent Nazi Party and Adolf Hitler in 1933. The legal measures taken by the Nazi government in February and March 1933, commonly known as Gleichschaltung ("coordination") meant that the government could legislate contrary to the constitution. The republic nominally continued to exist until 1945, as the constitution was never formally repealed. However, the measures taken by the Nazis in the early part of their rule rendered the constitution irrelevant. Thus, 1933 is usually seen as the end of the Weimar Republic and the beginning of Hitler's Third Reich.
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West Germany
West Germany (German: Westdeutschland) is the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG (German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland) in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990.
During this period, West Germany and the communist East Germany were divided by the Inner German border. After 1961, West Berlin was physically separated from East Berlin as well as from East Germany by the Berlin Wall. This situation ended when East Germany was dissolved and its five states joined the ten states of the Federal Republic of Germany along with the reunified city-state of Berlin. The enlarged Federal Republic of Germany with sixteen states (known simply as "Germany") is thus the continuation of the pre-1990 Federal Republic of Germany.
The Federal Republic of Germany was established from eleven states formed in the three Allied Zones of occupation held by the United States, the United Kingdom and France (the "Western Zones"). The city of Bonn was its provisional capital city. The fourth Allied occupation zone (the East Zone, or Ostzone) was held by the Soviet Union. The parts of this zone lying east of the Oder-Neisse were in fact annexed by the Soviet Union and communist Poland; the remaining central part around Berlin became the communist German Democratic Republic (abbreviated GDR; in German Deutsche Demokratische Republik or DDR) with its de facto capital in East Berlin. As a result, West Germany had a territory about half the size of the interwar democratic Weimar Republic.
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Wilstermarsch
Wilstermarsch is an Amt ("collective municipality") in the district of Steinburg, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is situated around Wilster, which is the seat of the Amt, but not part of it.
It is the lowest point in Germany, 3.5 meters below sea level.
The Amt Wilstermarsch consists of the following municipalities (population in 2005 in parentheses):
Coordinates: 53°55′21″N 9°22′28″E / 53.9225°N 9.37444°E / 53.9225; 9.37444
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York University
York University (French: Université York) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Ontario's second-largest graduate school and Canada's third-largest university.
York has a student population of approximately 51,000, 7,000 staff, and 250,000 alumni worldwide. It has ten faculties, including the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Schulich School of Business, Osgoode Hall Law School, Glendon College, the Faculty of Education, the Faculty of Fine Arts, the Faculty of Health, the Faculty of Environmental Studies, and 28 research centres.
York University participates in the Canadian Space Program. The Faculty of Science and Engineering is Canada's primary research facility into Martian exploration and has designed several space research instruments and applications currently used by NASA. York has pioneered some of the first PhD programs in Canada, in various fields including women's studies. The school of social work is recognized as having one of the most socially responsive programs in the country. York University's business school and law school have continuously been ranked among the top schools in Canada and the world.
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Åland Islands
The Åland Islands (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈoːland], Finnish: Ahvenanmaa) form an archipelago in the Baltic Sea. They are situated at the entrance to the Gulf of Bothnia and form an autonomous, demilitarised, monolingually Swedish-speaking region of Finland. The islands collectively constitute the smallest region of Finland, with only 0.49% of its land area, and 0.50% of its population.
Åland comprises Fasta Åland (the "Main Island," with 90% of the population), together with an archipelago to the east that comprises over 6,500 skerries and islands. Fasta Åland is separated from the coast of Sweden by 38 kilometres (24 mi) of open water to the west. In the east, the Åland archipelago is contiguous with the Finnish Archipelago Sea. Åland's only land border is located on the uninhabited skerry of Märket, which it shares with Sweden.
Because of the autonomous status of the Åland Islands, the powers exercised at the provincial level by representatives of the central state administration in the rest of Finland are largely exercised by the Government of Åland in Åland.
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Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (German: [ˈadɔlf ˈhɪtlɐ] ( listen); 20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP), commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and dictator of Nazi Germany (as Führer und Reichskanzler) from 1934 to 1945. Hitler is commonly associated with the rise of fascism in Europe, World War II, and the Holocaust.
A decorated veteran of World War I, Hitler joined the German Workers' Party, precursor of the Nazi Party, in 1919, and became leader of the NSDAP in 1921. In 1923, he attempted a coup d'état, known as the Beer Hall Putsch, in Munich. The failed coup resulted in Hitler's imprisonment, during which time he wrote his memoir, Mein Kampf (My Struggle). After his release in 1924, Hitler gained popular support by attacking the Treaty of Versailles and promoting Pan-Germanism, antisemitism, and anticommunism with charismatic oratory and Nazi propaganda. After his appointment as chancellor in 1933, he transformed the Weimar Republic into the Third Reich, a single-party dictatorship based on the totalitarian and autocratic ideology of Nazism. His aim was to establish a New Order of absolute Nazi German hegemony in continental Europe.
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Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( /ˈælbərt ˈaɪnstaɪn/; German: [ˈalbɐt ˈaɪnʃtaɪn] ( listen); 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics. While best known for his mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc2 (which has been dubbed "the world's most famous equation"), he received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect". The latter was pivotal in establishing quantum theory within physics.
Near the beginning of his career, Einstein thought that Newtonian mechanics was no longer enough to reconcile the laws of classical mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. This led to the development of his special theory of relativity. He realized, however, that the principle of relativity could also be extended to gravitational fields, and with his subsequent theory of gravitation in 1916, he published a paper on the general theory of relativity. He continued to deal with problems of statistical mechanics and quantum theory, which led to his explanations of particle theory and the motion of molecules. He also investigated the thermal properties of light which laid the foundation of the photon theory of light. In 1917, Einstein applied the general theory of relativity to model the structure of the universe as a whole.
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Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer (German pronunciation: [ˈalbʁɛçt ˈdyːʁɐ]; 21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528) was a German painter, printmaker, engraver, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since. His vast body of work includes altarpieces and religious works, numerous portraits and self-portraits, and copper engravings. His woodcuts, such as the Apocalypse series (1498), retain a more Gothic flavour than the rest of his work. His well-known works include the Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513), Saint Jerome in his Study (1514) and Melencolia I (1514), which has been the subject of extensive analysis and interpretation. His watercolours mark him as one of the first European landscape artists, while his ambitious woodcuts revolutionized the potential of that medium.
Dürer's introduction of classical motifs into Northern art, through his knowledge of Italian artists and German humanists, has secured his reputation as one of the most important figures of the Northern Renaissance. This is reinforced by his theoretical treatises, which involve principles of mathematics, perspective and ideal proportions.
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Alemanni
The Alemanni (also Alamanni, Alamani) were a confederation of Suebian Germanic tribes located on the upper Rhine river. First mentioned by the Romans in 213, the Alamanni captured the Agri Decumates in 260, and later expanded into present-day Alsace, and northern Switzerland, establishing the German language in those regions. In 496, the Alamanni were conquered by Frankish leader Clovis and incorporated into his dominions. The legacy of the Alamanni survives in the names of Germany in several languages.
According to Asinius Quadratus (quoted in the mid-6th century by Byzantine historian Agathias) their name means "all men". It indicates that they were a conglomeration drawn from various Germanic tribes. This was the derivation of Alemanni used by Edward Gibbon, in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and by the anonymous contributor of notes assembled from the papers of Nicolas Fréret, published in 1753, who noted that it was the name used by outsiders for those who called themselves the Suevi. This etymology has remained the standard derivation of the term.
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Angela Merkel
Angela Dorothea Merkel, German: [aŋˈɡeːla doʁoˈteːa ˈmɛʁkl̩] ( listen); née Kasner (born 17 July 1954) is the Chancellor of Germany and Chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Merkel is the first female Chancellor of Germany.
A physical chemist by professional background, Merkel entered politics in the wake of the Revolutions of 1989 and briefly served as the deputy spokesperson for Lothar de Maizière's democratically elected East German government prior to the German reunification. Following reunification in 1990, she was elected to the Bundestag, where she has represented the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern since. She served as Federal Minister for Women and Youth 1991–1994 and as Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety 1994–1998 in Helmut Kohl's fourth and fifth cabinets. She was Secretary General of the CDU 1998–2000, and was elected chairperson in 2000. From 2002 to 2005, she was also chair of the CDU/CSU parliamentary coalition.
After her election as Chancellor following the 2005 federal election, she led a grand coalition consisting of her own CDU party, its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), until 2009. In the 2009 federal election, the CDU obtained the largest share of the votes, and formed a coalition government with the CSU and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP).
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Arminius
Arminius (18/17 BC – AD 21), also known as Armin or Hermann (Arminius being a Latinization, similar to Brennus) was a chieftain of the Germanic Cherusci who defeated a Roman army in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. Arminius's influence held an allied coalition of Germanic tribes together in opposition to the Romans but after defeats by the Roman general Germanicus, nephew of the Emperor Tiberius, his influence waned and Arminius was assassinated on the orders of rival Germanic chiefs. Arminius's victory against the Roman legions in the Teutoburg forest had a far-reaching effect on the subsequent history of both the ancient Germanic peoples and on the Roman Empire. The Romans were to make no more concerted attempts to conquer and permanently hold Germania beyond the river Rhine.
Born in 18 or 17 BC as son of the Cheruscan chief Segimerus, Arminius was trained as a Roman military commander and attained Roman citizenship and the status of equestrian (petty noble) before returning to Germania and driving the Romans out.
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Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer (22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher known for his pessimism and philosophical clarity. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the four separate manifestations of reason in the phenomenal world.
Schopenhauer's most influential work, The World as Will and Representation, claimed that the world is fundamentally what humans recognize in themselves as their will. His analysis of will led him to the conclusion that emotional, physical, and sexual desires can never be fully satisfied. The corollary of this is an ultimately painful human condition. Consequently, he considered that a lifestyle of negating desires, similar to the ascetic teachings of Vedanta, Buddhism and the Church Fathers of early Christianity, was the only way to attain liberation.
Schopenhauer's metaphysical analysis of will, his views on human motivation and desire, and his aphoristic writing style influenced many well-known thinkers, including Friedrich Nietzsche,Richard Wagner, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Erwin Schrödinger, Albert Einstein,Sigmund Freud, Otto Rank, Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, Leo Tolstoy, Thomas Mann, and Jorge Luis Borges.
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Augustus
Augustus ( /ɔːˈɡʌstəs/;Classical Latin: [awˈɡʊstʊs]; Latin: Imperator Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD. Born Gaius Octavius Thurinus, he was adopted posthumously by his great-uncle Gaius Julius Caesar in 44 BC via his last will and testament, and between then and 27 BC was officially named Gaius Julius Caesar. In 27 BC the Senate awarded him the honorific Augustus ("the revered one"), and thus consequently he was Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus.
The young Octavius came into his inheritance after Caesar's assassination in 44 BC. In 43 BC, Octavian joined forces with Mark Antony and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus in a military dictatorship known as the Second Triumvirate. As a triumvir, Octavian ruled Rome and many of its provinces. The triumvirate was eventually torn apart under the competing ambitions of its rulers: Lepidus was driven into exile, and Antony committed suicide following his defeat at the Battle of Actium by Octavian's fleet under the command of Agrippa in 31 BC.
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Austria
Austria (i/ˈɒstriə/ or /ˈɔːstriə/; German: Österreich [ˈøːstɐˌʁaɪç] ( listen)), officially the Republic of Austria (German: Republik Österreich (help·info)), is a landlocked country of roughly 8.47 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The territory of Austria covers 83,855 square kilometres (32,377 sq mi) and has a temperate and alpine climate. Austria's terrain is highly mountainous due to the presence of the Alps; only 32% of the country is below 500 metres (1,640 ft), and its highest point is 3,798 metres (12,461 ft). The majority of the population speak local Austro-Bavarian dialects of German as their native language, and German in its standard form is the country's official language. Other local official languages are Burgenland Croatian, Hungarian and Slovene.
The origins of modern-day Austria date back to the time of the Habsburg dynasty when the vast majority of the country was a part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Austria became one of the great powers of Europe and, in response to the coronation of Napoleon I as the Emperor of the French, the Austrian Empire was officially proclaimed in 1804. In 1867, the Austrian Empire was reformed into Austria-Hungary.
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Balts
The Balts or Baltic peoples (People who live by the Baltic Sea), defined as speakers of one of the Baltic languages, a branch of the Indo-European language family, are descended from a group of Indo-European tribes who settled area between the Jutland peninsula in the west and Moscow, Oka and Volga rivers basins in the east. One of the features of Baltic languages is the number of conservative or archaic features retained. Among the Baltic peoples are modern Lithuanians, Latvians (including Latgalians) — all Eastern Balts — as well as the Prussians, Yotvingians and Galindians — the Western Balts — whose languages and cultures are now extinct.
Adam of Bremen was the first writer to use the term Baltic in its modern sense to mean the sea of that name. Although he must have been familiar with the ancient name, Balcia, meaning a supposed island in the Baltic Sea, and although he may have been aware of the Baltic words containing the stem balt-, "white", as "swamp", he reports that he followed the local use of balticus from baelt ("belt") because the sea stretches to the east "in modum baltei" ("in the manner of a belt"). This is the first reference to "the Baltic or Barbarian Sea, a day's journey from Hamburg."
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Bernhard Riemann
Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann [ˈʁiːman] ( listen) (September 17, 1826 – July 20, 1866) was an influential German mathematician who made lasting contributions to analysis, number theory and differential geometry, some of them enabling the later development of general relativity.
Riemann was born in Breselenz, a village near Dannenberg in the Kingdom of Hanover in what is the Federal Republic of Germany today. His father, Friedrich Bernhard Riemann, was a poor Lutheran pastor in Breselenz who fought in the Napoleonic Wars. His mother, Charlotte Ebell, died before her children had reached adulthood. Riemann was the second of six children, shy, and suffered from numerous nervous breakdowns. Riemann exhibited exceptional mathematical skills, such as fantastic calculation abilities, from an early age but suffered from timidity and a fear of speaking in public.
During 1840, Riemann went to Hanover to live with his grandmother and attend lyceum (middle school). After the death of his grandmother in 1842, he attended high school at the Johanneum Lüneburg. In high school, Riemann studied the Bible intensively, but he was often distracted by mathematics. His teachers were amazed by his adept ability to solve complicated mathematical operations, in which he often outstripped his instructor's knowledge. In 1846, at the age of 19, he started studying philology and theology in order to become a priest and help with his family's finances.
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Brothers Grimm
The Brothers Grimm (German: Brüder Grimm or Die Gebrüder Grimm), Jakob Grimm (January 4, 1785 – September 20, 1863) and Wilhelm Grimm (February 24, 1786 – December 16, 1859), were German academics, linguists, cultural researchers, and authors who together collected folklore. They are among the most well-known storytellers of European folk tales, and their work popularized such stories as "Cinderella", "The Frog Prince" (Der Froschkönig), "Hansel and Gretel" (Hänsel und Gretel), "Rapunzel", "Rumpelstiltskin" (Rumpelstilzchen), and "Snow White" (Schneewittchen). Their first collection of folk tales, Children's and Household Tales (Kinder- und Hausmärchen), was published in 1812.
The brothers spent their formative years first in the German town of Hanau and then in Steinau. Their father's death in 1796, about a decade into their lives, caused great poverty for the family and affected the brothers for many years. They attended the University of Marburg where historian and jurist Friedrich von Savigny spurred their interest in philology and Germanic studies—a field in which they are now considered pioneers—and at the same time developed a curiosity for folklore, which grew into a life-long dedication to collecting German folk tales.
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Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy indigenous to the Indian subcontinent and encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs, and practices largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, who is commonly known as the Buddha (meaning "the awakened one" in Sanskrit and Pāli). The Buddha lived and taught in the eastern part of Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE. He is recognized by Buddhists as an awakened or enlightened teacher who shared his insights to help sentient beings end ignorance (avidyā), craving (taṇhā), and suffering (dukkha), by recognizing dependent origination and sunyata, and attain Nirvana.
Two major branches of Buddhism are recognized: Theravada ("The School of the Elders") and Mahayana ("The Great Vehicle"). Theravada has a widespread following in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Mahayana is found throughout East Asia and includes the traditions of Pure Land, Zen, Nichiren Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, Shingon, Tiantai (Tendai) and Shinnyo-en. In some classifications, Vajrayana—practiced mainly in Tibet and Mongolia, and adjacent parts of China and Russia—is recognized as a third branch, while others classify it as a part of Mahayana. There are other categorisations of these three Vehicles or Yanas.
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Carl Friedrich Gauss
Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss ( /ˈɡaʊs/; German: Gauß listen (help·info), Latin: Carolus Fridericus Gauss) (30 April 1777 – 23 February 1855) was a German mathematician and physical scientist who contributed significantly to many fields, including number theory, statistics, analysis, differential geometry, geodesy, geophysics, electrostatics, astronomy and optics.
Sometimes referred to as the Princeps mathematicorum (Latin, "the Prince of Mathematicians" or "the foremost of mathematicians") and "greatest mathematician since antiquity", Gauss had a remarkable influence in many fields of mathematics and science and is ranked as one of history's most influential mathematicians. He referred to mathematics as "the queen of sciences".
Carl Friedrich Gauss was born on 30 April 1777 in Braunschweig, in the duchy of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, now part of Lower Saxony, Germany, as the son of poor working-class parents. Indeed, his mother was illiterate and never recorded the date of his birth, remembering only that he had been born on a Wednesday, eight days before the Feast of the Ascension, which itself occurs 40 days after Easter. Gauss would later solve this puzzle for his birthdate in the context of finding the date of Easter, deriving methods to compute the date in both past and future years. He was christened and confirmed in a church near the school he attended as a child.
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Carolingian Empire
Carolingian Empire (800–888) is a historiographical term which has been used to refer to the realm of the Franks under the Carolingian dynasty in the Early Middle Ages. This dynasty is seen as the founders of France and Germany, and its beginning date is based on the crowning of Charlemagne, or Charles the Great, and ends with the death of Charles the Fat. Depending on one's perspective, this Empire can be seen as the later history of the Frankish Realm or the early history of France and of the Holy Roman Empire.
The term refers to the coronation of Charlemagne by Pope Leo III in 800. Because Charles and his ancestors had been rulers of the Frankish realm earlier (his grandfather Charles Martel had essentially founded the empire during his lifetime), the coronation did not actually constitute a new empire. Most historians prefer to use the term "Frankish Kingdoms" or "Frankish Realm" to refer to the area covering parts of today's Germany and France from the 5th to the 9th century.
Though Charles Martel chose not to take the title King, as his son Pepin III the Short would, or Emperor, as his grandson Charlemagne would be titled, he was absolute ruler of virtually all of today's continental Western Europe north of the Pyrenees. Only the remaining Saxon realms, which he partly conquered, Lombardy, and the Marca Hispanica north of the Pyrenees were significant additions to the Frankish realms after his death.
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Charlemagne
Charlemagne ( /ˈʃɑrlɨmeɪn/ or /ˈʃɑrləmeɪn/; French pronunciation: [ʃaʁ.lə.maɲ]; c. 742 – 28 January 814), also known as Charles the Great (Latin: Carolus Magnus or Karolus Magnus), was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans (Imperator Romanorum) from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800 in Rome.
His rule is also associated with the Carolingian Renaissance, a revival of art, religion, and culture through the medium of the Catholic Church. Through his foreign conquests and internal reforms, Charlemagne helped define both Western Europe and the European Middle Ages. He is numbered as Charles I in the regnal lists of Germany, the Holy Roman Empire, and France.
The son of King Pepin the Short and Bertrada of Laon, a Frankish queen, he succeeded his father in 768 and was initially co-ruler with his brother Carloman I. It has often been suggested that the relationship between Charlemagne and Carloman was not good, but it has also been argued that tensions were exaggerated by Carolingian chroniclers.
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Chatti
The Chatti (also Chatthi or Catti) were an ancient Germanic tribe whose homeland was near the upper Weser. They settled in central and northern Hesse and southern Lower Saxony, along the upper reaches of the Weser River and in the valleys and mountains of the Eder, Fulda and Weser River regions, a district approximately corresponding to Hesse-Kassel, though probably somewhat more extensive. According to Tacitus, among them were the Batavians, until an internal quarrel drove them out, to take up new lands at the mouth of the Rhine.
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Cheruscan
The Cherusci were a Germanic tribe that inhabited parts of the northern Rhine valley and the plains and forests of northwestern Germany, in the area between present-day Osnabrück and Hanover, during the 1st century BC and 1st century AD. Subsequently they were absorbed into the tribal confederations of the Franks and Saxons.
The etymological origin of the name Cherusci is not known with certainty. According to the dominant opinion in scholarship, the name may derive from the ancient Germanic word *herut (Modern English hart, i.e. 'deer'). The tribe may have been named after the deer because it had a totemistic significance in Germanic symbolism. A different hypothesis, proposed in the 19th century by Jacob Grimm and others, derives the name from *heru-, a word for 'sword' (cf. Gothic hairus, Old English heoru) Hans Kuhn has argued that the derivational suffix -sk-, involved in both explanations, is otherwise not common in Germanic. He suggested that the name may therefore be a compound of ultimately non-Germanic origin, connected to the hypothesized nordwestblock.
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China
China (i/ˈtʃaɪnə/; Chinese: 中国; pinyin: Zhōngguó; see also Names of China), officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is the world's most-populous country, with a population of over 1.3 billion. Covering approximately 9.6 million square kilometres, the East Asian state is the world's second-largest country by land area, and the third- or fourth-largest in total area, depending on the definition of total area.
The People's Republic of China is a single-party state governed by the Communist Party of China. It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four directly controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing), and two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau). Its capital city is Beijing. The PRC also claims Taiwan—which is controlled by the Republic of China (ROC), a separate political entity—as its 23rd province, a claim controversial due to the complex political status of Taiwan and the unresolved Chinese Civil War. The PRC government denies the legitimacy of the ROC.
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David Bordwell
David Bordwell (born July 23, 1947) is an American film theorist and film historian. Since receiving his PhD from the University of Iowa in 1974, he has written more than fifteen volumes on the subject of cinema including Narration in the Fiction Film (1985), Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema (1988), Making Meaning (1989), and On the History of Film Style (1997).
With his wife Kristin Thompson, Bordwell wrote the introductory textbooks Film Art (1979) and Film History (1994). With aesthetic philosopher Noël Carroll, Bordwell edited the anthology Post-Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies (1996), a polemic on the state of contemporary film theory. His largest work to date remains The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960 (1985), written in collaboration with Thompson and Janet Staiger. Several of his more influential articles on theory, narrative, and style were collected in Poetics of Cinema (2007), named in homage after the famous anthology of Russian formalist film theory Poetika Kino, edited by Boris Eikhenbaum in 1927.
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David Hilbert
David Hilbert, FRS (German pronunciation: [ˈdaːvɪt ˈhɪlbɐt]; January 23, 1862 – February 14, 1943) was a German mathematician. He is recognized as one of the most influential and universal mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Hilbert discovered and developed a broad range of fundamental ideas in many areas, including invariant theory and the axiomatization of geometry. He also formulated the theory of Hilbert spaces, one of the foundations of functional analysis.
Hilbert adopted and warmly defended Georg Cantor's set theory and transfinite numbers. A famous example of his leadership in mathematics is his 1900 presentation of a collection of problems that set the course for much of the mathematical research of the 20th century.
Hilbert and his students contributed significantly to establishing rigor and developed important tools used in modern mathematical physics. Hilbert is known as one of the founders of proof theory and mathematical logic, as well as for being among the first to distinguish between mathematics and metamathematics.
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Felix Klein
Christian Felix Klein (25 April 1849 – 22 June 1925) was a German mathematician, known for his work in group theory, complex analysis, non-Euclidean geometry, and on the connections between geometry and group theory. His 1872 Erlangen Program, classifying geometries by their underlying symmetry groups, was a hugely influential synthesis of much of the mathematics of the day.
Klein was born in Düsseldorf, to Prussian parents; his father was a Prussian government official's secretary stationed in the Rhine Province. He attended the Gymnasium in Düsseldorf, then studied mathematics and physics at the University of Bonn, 1865–1866, intending to become a physicist. At that time, Julius Plücker held Bonn's chair of mathematics and experimental physics, but by the time Klein became his assistant, in 1866, Plücker's interest was geometry. Klein received his doctorate, supervised by Plücker, from the University of Bonn in 1868.
Plücker died in 1868, leaving his book on the foundations of line geometry incomplete. Klein was the obvious person to complete the second part of Plücker's Neue Geometrie des Raumes, and thus became acquainted with Alfred Clebsch, who had moved to Göttingen in 1868. Klein visited Clebsch the following year, along with visits to Berlin and Paris. In July 1870, at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, he was in Paris and had to leave the country. For a short time, he served as a medical orderly in the Prussian army before being appointed lecturer at Göttingen in early 1871.
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Ferdinand Cohn
Ferdinand Julius Cohn (24 January 1828 – 25 June 1898) was a German biologist.
Cohn was born in Breslau in the Prussian Province of Silesia. At the age of 10 he suffered hearing impairment. He received a degree in botany in 1847 at the age of nineteen at the University of Berlin. He was a teacher and researcher at University of Breslau for his entire career. In the 1850s he mostly studied algae. In the 1860s he studied plant physiology in several different aspects. From 1870 onward he mostly studied bacteria. He published over 150 research reports during his lifetime. The University of Breslau became an innovative center for plant physiology and microbiology while he was there.
Cohn was the first to classify algae as plants, and to define what distinguishes them from green plants. His classification of bacteria into four groups based on shape (sphericals, short rods, threads, and spirals) is still in use today. Among other things Cohn is remembered for being the first to show that Bacillus can change from a vegetative state to an endospore state when subjected to an environment deleterious to the vegetative state.
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Francia
Francia or Frankia, also called the Kingdom of the Franks or Frankish Kingdom (Latin: regnum Francorum), Frankish Realm or occasionally Frankland, was the territory inhabited and ruled by the Franks from the 3rd to the 10th century. Under the nearly continuous campaigns of Charles Martel, Pepin the Short, and Charlemagne—father, son, grandson—the greatest expansion of the Frankish empire was secured by the early 9th century.
The tradition of dividing patrimonies among brothers meant that the Frankish realm was ruled, nominally, as one polity subdivided into several regna (kingdoms or subkingdoms). The geography and number of subkingdoms varied over time, but the particular term Francia came generally to refer to just one regnum, that of Austrasia, centred on the Rhine and Meuse rivers in northern Europe; even so, sometimes the term was used as well to encompass Neustria north of the Loire and west of the Seine. Eventually, the singular use of the name Francia shifted towards Paris, and settled on the region of the Seine basin surrounding Paris, which still today bears the name Île-de-France, and which region gave its name to the entire Kingdom of France.
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Frankish Empire
Francia or Frankia, also called the Kingdom of the Franks or Frankish Kingdom (Latin: regnum Francorum), Frankish Realm or occasionally Frankland, was the territory inhabited and ruled by the Franks from the 3rd to the 10th century. Under the nearly continuous campaigns of Charles Martel, Pepin the Short, and Charlemagne—father, son, grandson—the greatest expansion of the Frankish empire was secured by the early 9th century.
The tradition of dividing patrimonies among brothers meant that the Frankish realm was ruled, nominally, as one polity subdivided into several regna (kingdoms or subkingdoms). The geography and number of subkingdoms varied over time, but the particular term Francia came generally to refer to just one regnum, that of Austrasia, centred on the Rhine and Meuse rivers in northern Europe; even so, sometimes the term was used as well to encompass Neustria north of the Loire and west of the Seine. Eventually, the singular use of the name Francia shifted towards Paris, and settled on the region of the Seine basin surrounding Paris, which still today bears the name Île-de-France, and which region gave its name to the entire Kingdom of France.
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Franks
The Franks (Latin: Franci or gens Francorum) were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as populating a broad strip of land on the right bank of the Lower and Middle Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a kingdom on Roman-held soil that was acknowledged by the Romans after 357. In the climate of the collapse of imperial authority in the West, the Frankish tribes were united under the Merovingians and conquered all of Gaul except Septimania in the 6th century. The Salian political elite was one of the most active forces in spreading Christianity over western Europe. The Franks had created one of the most strong and stable barbaric kingdoms.
The Merovingian dynasty, descended from the Salians, founded one of the Germanic monarchies which replaced the Western Roman Empire from the fifth century. The Frankish state consolidated its hold over large parts of western Europe by the end of the eighth century, developing into the Carolingian Empire which dominated most of Western Europe. This empire would gradually evolve into France and the Holy Roman Empire.
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Franz Beckenbauer
Franz Anton Beckenbauer [fʁants ˈbɛkənˌbaʊ̯ɐ] (born 11 September 1945 in Munich) is a German football coach, manager, and former player, nicknamed Der Kaiser ("The Emperor") because of his elegant style, his leadership, his first name "Franz" (reminiscent of the Austrian emperors), and his dominance on the football pitch. He is generally regarded as the greatest German footballer of all time and one of the greatest and most decorated footballers in the history of the game. Beckenbauer was a versatile player who started out as a midfielder but made his name as a defender. He is often credited as having invented the role of the modern sweeper or libero.
Twice selected the European Footballer of the Year, he appeared 103 times for West Germany and played in three World Cups. He lifted the World Cup trophy as captain in 1974, and repeated the feat as a manager in 1990. With the club Bayern Munich, he won three consecutive European Cups from 1974 to 1976, and the Cup Winners' Cup in 1967. He is one of only two footballers, along with Brazil's Mário Zagallo, to have won the World Cup both as a player and as a coach. Beckenbauer is one of two players (along with Carles Puyol) to captain three European Cup winning sides. He went on to become coach and president of the institution. He is also a member of the National Soccer Hall of Fame.
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Friedrich Ebert
Friedrich Ebert (4 February 1871 – 28 February 1925) was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).
When Ebert was elected as the leader of the SPD after the death of August Bebel, the party members of the SPD were deeply divided because of the party's support for World War I. Ebert supported the Burgfrieden and tried to isolate the war opposers in the party. After the war and the end of the monarchy he served as the first President of Germany from 1919 until his death in office. Before being elected as President, he briefly served as Chancellor during the last months of the German Empire. After he was announced as the new President, the government intervened together with the army and right wing Freikorps against the leftist uprisings, which resulted in the death of several left politicians and ended the partnership of the SPD in government with the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD).
After that he changed his politics to a “policy of compensating“ between the left and the right, between the workers and the enterprises. For that he followed a policy of brittle coalitions. This resulted in some problems, for example the SPD agreed during the crisis of 1923 to an extension of the work time without extra payment for the workers, but the conservative parties hadn’t agreed to also introduce taxes for the rich as an compensation. His death, which resulted in the monarchist Paul von Hindenburg as his Presidential successor, is seen as an important break in the Weimar Republic, which ended less than a decade later.
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Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels (German pronunciation: [ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈɛŋəls]; 28 November 1820 – 5 August 1895) was a German-English industrialist, social scientist, author, political theorist, philosopher, and father of Marxist theory, alongside Karl Marx. In 1845 he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research. In 1848 he co-authored The Communist Manifesto with Karl Marx, and later he supported Marx financially to do research and write Das Kapital. After Marx's death Engels edited the second and third volumes. Additionally, Engels organized Marx's notes on the "Theories of Surplus Value" and this was later published as the "fourth volume" of Capital.
Friedrich (Frederick) Engels was born on November 28, 1820 in Barmen, Prussia (now Wuppertal, Germany). At the time, Barmen was an expanding industrial metropole and Frederick was the eldest son of a wealthy German cotton manufacturer. As his father, Friederich Sr., was a Methodist. Accordingly, Fredrick was raised Christian Pietist. As he grew up, his relationship with his parents became strained because of his atheist beliefs. Parental disapproval of his revolutionary activities is recorded in an October, 1848 letter from his mother, Elizabeth Engels. In this letter his mother berates him for having "really gone too far" and "begged" him "to proceed no further.". "You have paid more heed to other people, to strangers, and have taken no account of your mother's pleas. God alone knows what I have felt and suffered of late. I was trembling when I picked up the newspaper and saw therein that a warrant was out for my son's arrest." At the point this letter was written Frederick Engels was in hiding in Brussels, Belgium and was soon to make his way to Switzerland and then in 1849 make his way back into Germany to participate in the revolutionary uprising in Baden and Palatinate.
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Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche ( /ˈniːtʃə/;German pronunciation: [ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈniːtsʃə]; October 15, 1844 – August 25, 1900) was a German philosopher, poet, cultural critic and classical philologist. He wrote critical texts on religion, morality, contemporary culture, philosophy and science, displaying a fondness for metaphor, irony and aphorism.
Nietzsche's influence remains substantial within and beyond philosophy, notably in existentialism, nihilism and postmodernism. His style and radical questioning of the value and objectivity of truth have resulted in much commentary and interpretation, mostly in the continental tradition. His key ideas include the death of God, the Übermensch, the eternal recurrence, the Apollonian and Dionysian dichotomy, perspectivism and the will to power. Central to his philosophy is the idea of "life-affirmation", which involves an honest questioning of all doctrines that drain life's expansive energies, however socially prevalent and radical those views might be.
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Friedrich Schiller
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller [ˈjoːhan ˈkʁɪstɔf ˈfʁiːdʁɪç fɔn ˈʃɪlɐ] (10 November 1759 – 9 May 1805) was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. They frequently discussed issues concerning aesthetics, and Schiller encouraged Goethe to finish works he left as sketches. This relationship and these discussions led to a period now referred to as Weimar Classicism. They also worked together on Xenien, a collection of short satirical poems in which both Schiller and Goethe challenge opponents to their philosophical vision.
Friedrich Schiller was born on 10 November 1759, in Marbach, Württemberg as the only son of military doctor Johann Kaspar Schiller (1733–96), and Elisabeth Dorothea Kodweiß (1732–1802). They also had five daughters. His father was away in the Seven Years' War when Friedrich was born. He was named after king Frederick the Great, but he was called Fritz by nearly everyone. Kaspar Schiller was rarely home during the war, but he did manage to visit the family once in a while. His wife and children also visited him occasionally wherever he happened to be stationed. When the war ended in 1763, Schiller's father became a recruiting officer and was stationed in Schwäbisch Gmünd. The family moved with him. Due to the high cost of living—especially the rent—the family moved to nearby Lorch.
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Frisii
The Frisii were an ancient Germanic tribe living in the low-lying region between the Zuiderzee and the River Ems. In the Germanic pre-Migration Period (i.e., before c. 300 AD) the Frisii and the related Chauci, Saxons, and Angles inhabited the Continental European coast from the Zuyder Zee to south Jutland. All of these peoples shared a common material culture, and so cannot be defined archaeologically.
The Frisii were bordered on the south by Germans who would later coalesce into the Frankish confederation in the 3rd century. On the east they were bordered by the Ampsivarii who lived at the mouth of the Ems until AD 58, at which time the Chauci expelled them and gained a border with the Frisii.
The Chauci and other tribes to the east would merge to form the Saxons in the 3rd century. Some or all of the Frisii may have joined in either or both of these confederations, but they would retain a separate identity in Roman eyes until at least 296, when they were forcibly resettled as laeti (i.e., Roman-era serfs) and thereafter disappear from recorded history. Their tentative existence in the 4th century is confirmed by archaeological discovery of a type of earthenware unique to 4th-century Frisia, called terp Tritzum, showing that an unknown number of Frisii were resettled in Flanders and Kent, likely as laeti under the aforementioned Roman coercion.
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Fritz Lang
Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang (December 5, 1890 – August 2, 1976) was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute. His most famous films are the groundbreaking Metropolis (the world's most expensive silent film at the time of its release) and M, made before he moved to the United States, his iconic precursor to the film noir genre.
Lang was born in Vienna as the second son of Anton Lang (1860–1940), an architect and construction company manager, and his wife Pauline "Paula" Lang née Schlesinger (1864–1920). Fritz Lang himself was baptized on 28 December 1890 at the Schottenkirche in Vienna.
Lang's parents were of Moravian[citation needed] descent and practicing Roman Catholics. His mother was born Jewish, but had converted to Catholicism when Fritz was ten. His mother took this conversion seriously and was dedicated to raising Fritz as a Catholic. Lang never had an interest in his Jewish heritage and identified himself as Catholic. Although he was not a particularly devout Catholic, he "regularly used Catholic images and themes [in] his films".
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Gerhard Casper
Gerhard Casper (born December 25, 1937) was the ninth president of Stanford University from 1992 to 2000. He is currently a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford, and has been appointed to serve as the institute’s director between September 1, 2012 and August 31, 2013. Casper is also the Peter and Helen Bing Professor in Undergraduate Education, emeritus, and is a professor, emeritus, at Stanford Law School.
Born December 25, 1937, Gerhard Casper grew up in Hamburg, Germany. He earned his first law degree from the University of Hamburg in 1961. In 1962, he received his LL.M. from Yale University. He then attended the University of Freiburg, where he obtained his doctorate in 1964.
In the fall of 1964, Casper immigrated to the United States and spent two years as an assistant professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1966, he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School. Between 1979 and 1987, he served as dean of the law school. In 1989, Casper was appointed provost of the University of Chicago. He served as president of Stanford University from 1992 to 2000.
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Gerhard Schröder
Gerhard Fritz Kurt Schröder (commonly rendered Schroeder)([ˈɡɛɐ̯haɐ̯t fʁɪts kʊʁt ˈʃʁøːdɐ] ( listen); born 7 April 1944) is a German politician, and was Chancellor of Germany from 1998 to 2005. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), he led a coalition government of the SPD and the Greens. Before becoming a full-time politician, he was a lawyer, and before becoming Chancellor he served as Premier of Lower Saxony (1990–1998). Following the 2005 federal election, which his party lost, after three weeks of negotiations he stood down as Chancellor in favour of Angela Merkel of the rival Christian Democratic Union. He is currently the chairman of the board of Nord Stream AG, after having been hired as a global manager by investment bank Rothschild.
Schröder was born in Mossenberg, today an outlying centre of Blomberg, in what is now North Rhine-Westphalia. His father, Fritz Schröder, a lance corporal in the Wehrmacht, was killed in action in World War II in Romania on 4 October 1944, a few months after Gerhard's birth. His mother Erika worked as an agricultural laborer so that she could support herself and her two sons.
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Gerhart Hauptmann
Gerhart Hauptmann (15 November 1862 – 6 June 1946) was a German dramatist and novelist who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1912.
Hauptmann was born in Obersalzbrunn, a small town of Silesia, now known as Szczawno-Zdrój and a part of Poland. He was the son of a hotel-keeper. After attending the village school he went to the Realschule in Breslau, after which he was sent to learn agriculture on his uncle's farm at Jauer. Having no taste for country life, Hauptmann soon returned to Breslau and entered the art school with the intention of becoming a sculptor. There he met his life-long friend Josef Block. He later studied at the University of Jena and spent the greater part of 1883 and 1884 in Italy. In May 1885, Hauptmann married and settled in Berlin and, devoting himself entirely to literary work, soon attained a reputation as one of the chief representatives of the modern drama.
In 1891 he moved to Schreiberhau in Silesia. Hauptmann's first drama, Before Dawn (1889) inaugurated the naturalistic movement in modern German literature. It was followed by The Reconciliation (1890), Lonely People (1891) and The Weavers (1892), a powerful drama depicting the rising of the Silesian weavers in 1844 for which he is best known outside of Germany.
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Germania
Germania (Greek: Γερμανία) was the Greek and Roman geographic term for the geographical regions inhabited mainly by peoples considered to be Germani. It was most often used to refer especially to the east of the Rhine and north of the Danube. The areas west of the Rhine were mainly Celtic (specifically Gaulish) and had become part of the Roman Empire.
Some Germani, perhaps the original people to have been referred to by this name, had lived on the west side of the Rhine. At least as early as the 2nd century BC. This area was considered to be in "Gaul", and became part of the Roman empire. These were the so-called germani cisrhenani, who in modern terms lived in the region of modern eastern Belgium, the southeastern Netherlands, and stretching into Germany towards the Rhine. During the period of the Roman empire, more tribes were settled in areas of the empire near the Rhine, in territories controlled by the Roman Empire. Eventually these areas came to be known as Lesser Germania, while Greater Germania (Magna Germania) was the larger territory east of the Rhine.
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Germanic law
Several Latin law codes of the Germanic peoples written in the Early Middle Ages (also known as leges barbarorum "laws of the barbarians") survive, dating to between the 5th and 9th centuries. They are influenced by Roman law, ecclesiastical law, and earlier tribal customs.
Germanic law was codified in writing under the influence of Roman law; previously it was held in the memory of designated individuals who acted as judges in confrontations and meted out justice according to customary rote, based on careful memorization of precedent. Among the Franks they were called rachimburgs. "Living libraries, they were law incarnate, unpredictable and terrifying." When justice is oral, the judicial act is personal and subjective. Power, whose origins were at once magical, divine and military, as Michel Rouche has pointed out, was exercised jointly by the "throne-worthy" elected king and his free warrior companions. Oral law sufficed as long as the warband was not settled in one place. Germanic law made no provisions for the public welfare, the res publica of Romans
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Germanic peoples
The Germanic peoples (also called Teutonic or Gothic in older literature) are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.
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Germans
The Germans (Deutsche) are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages. Legally, Germans are citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Of approximately 100 million native speakers of German in the world, about 66–75 million consider themselves Germans. There are an additional 80 million people of German ancestry mainly in the United States, Brazil, Canada, Argentina, France, Russia, Chile, Poland, Australia and Romania who most likely are not native speakers of German. Thus, the total number of Germans worldwide lies between 66 and 160 million, depending on the criteria applied (native speakers, single-ancestry ethnic Germans, partial German ancestry, etc.).
Today, peoples from countries with a German-speaking majority or significant German-speaking population groups other than Germany, such as Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Luxembourg, have developed their own national identity and usually do not refer to themselves as "Germans" in a modern context.
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Gottfried Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (sometimes von Leibniz) (German pronunciation: [ˈɡɔtfʁiːt ˈvɪlhɛlm fɔn ˈlaɪbnɪts] or [ˈlaɪpnɪts]) (July 1, 1646 – November 14, 1716) was a German mathematician and philosopher. He wrote in several languages, but primarily in Latin (~40%), French (~30%) and German (~15%).
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Gottlieb Daimler
Gottlieb Daimler (German pronunciation: [ˈɡɔtliːp ˈdaɪmlɐ]; March 17, 1834 – March 6, 1900) was an engineer, industrial designer and industrialist born in Schorndorf (Kingdom of Württemberg, a federal state of the German Confederation), in what is now Germany. He was a pioneer of internal-combustion engines and automobile development. He invented the high-speed petrol engine and the first four-wheel automobile.
Daimler and his lifelong business partner Wilhelm Maybach were two inventors whose goal was to create small, high-speed engines to be mounted in any kind of locomotion device. In 1885 they designed a precursor of the modern petrol (gasoline) engine which they subsequently fitted to a two-wheeler, the first internal combustion motorcycle and, in the next year, to a stagecoach, and a boat. Daimler baptized it the Grandfather Clock engine (Standuhr) because of its resemblance to an old pendulum clock.
In 1890, they founded Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft (DMG, in English—Daimler Motors Corporation). They sold their first automobile in 1892. Daimler fell ill and took a break from the business. Upon his return he experienced difficulty with the other stockholders that led to his resignation in 1893. This was reversed in 1894. Maybach resigned at the same time, and also returned. In 1900 Daimler died and Wilhelm Maybach quit DMG in 1907. In 1924, the DMG management signed a long term co-operation agreement with Karl Benz's Benz & Cie., and in 1926 the two companies merged to become Daimler-Benz AG, which is now part of Daimler AG.[citation needed]
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Gottlob Frege
Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (8 November 1848 – 26 July 1925, pronounced [ˈɡɔtloːp ˈfreːɡə ]) was a German mathematician, logician and philosopher. He is considered to be one of the founders of modern logic and made major contributions to the foundations of mathematics. He is generally considered to be the father of analytic philosophy, for his writings on the philosophy of language and mathematics. While he was mainly ignored by the intellectual world when he published his writings, Giuseppe Peano (1858–1932) and Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) introduced his work to later generations of logicians and philosophers.
Frege was born in 1848 in Wismar, in the state of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (the modern German federal state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern). His father Carl (Karl) Alexander Frege (3 August 1809 – 30 November 1866) was the co-founder and headmaster of a girls' high school until his death. After Carl's death, the school was led by Frege's mother Auguste Wilhelmine Sophie Frege (née Bialloblotzky, 12 January 1815 – 14 October 1898).
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Günter Grass
Günter Wilhelm Grass (born 16 October 1927) is a German-Kashubian novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, sculptor and recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is widely regarded as Germany's most famous living writer.
Grass was born in the Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland). In 1945, he came to West Germany as a homeless refugee, though in his fiction he frequently returns to the Danzig of his childhood.
Grass is best known for his first novel, The Tin Drum (1959), a key text in European magic realism, and the first part of his Danzig Trilogy, which also includes Cat and Mouse and Dog Years. His works are frequently considered to have a left-wing political dimension and Grass has been an active supporter of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). The Tin Drum was adapted into a film, which won both the 1979 Palme d'Or and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The Swedish Academy, upon awarding him the Nobel Prize in Literature, noted him as a writer "whose frolicsome black fables portray the forgotten face of history".
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Hagen Schulze
Hagen Schulze (born 31 July 1943 in Tangier, Morocco) is a German historian currently working at the Free University of Berlin. He specializes in early modern and modern German and European history, particularly in comparative European nationalisms.
Schulze studied medieval and early modern history, philosophy and political science at the University of Bonn and the University of Kiel. In 1967 he earned his doctorate and worked during the following years at the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in Berlin and for the Federal Archives in Koblenz. In 1977 he earned his habilitation with his biography of Otto Braun. In the following years he took up positions as a private tutor and as a substitute teacher at Kiel and Berlin, until he was named a full professor of modern history and historiography at the Free University of Berlin in 1979.
During the Historikerstreit of 1986-7, Schulze did not defend the views of Ernst Nolte that Nazi war crimes, including the Holocaust, constituted a reaction to a perceived "Jewish declaration of war" against Germany compounded by Nazi fears of Soviet communism. But he criticized Jürgen Habermas, the main opponent of Nolte, of presenting simplistic views: on the one hand liberals who learned form History of German history, on the other hand a group of historians promoted by conservatives.
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Hans Geiger
Hans "Gengar" Geiger (September 30, 1882 – September 24, 1945) was a German physicist. He is perhaps best known as the co-inventor of the Geiger counter and for the Geiger-Marsden experiment which discovered the Atomic nucleus. Geiger was born at Neustadt-an-der-Haardt, Germany. He was one of five children born to the Indologist Wilhelm Ludwig Geiger, who was professor at the University of Erlangen.
In 1902, Geiger started studying physics and mathematics in University of Erlangen and was awarded a doctorate in 1906. In 1907 he began work with Ernest Rutherford at the University of Manchester and in 1909, along with Ernest Marsden, conducted the famous Geiger-Marsden experiment called the 'gold foil experiment'. Together they created the Geiger counter.
In 1911 Geiger and John Mitchell Nuttall discovered the Geiger-Nuttall law (or rule) and performed experiments that led to Rutherford's atomic model. In 1928 Geiger and his student Walther Müller created an improved version of the Geiger counter, the Geiger-Müller counter. Geiger also worked with James Chadwick.
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Heinrich Böll
Heinrich Theodor Böll (December 21, 1917 – July 16, 1985) was one of Germany's foremost post-World War II writers. Böll was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize in 1967 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972.
Böll was born in Cologne, Germany, to a Catholic, pacifist family that later opposed the rise of Nazism. He refused to join the Hitler Youth during the 1930s. He was apprenticed to a bookseller before studying German at the University of Cologne. Conscripted into the Wehrmacht, he served in France, Romania, Hungary and the Soviet Union, and was wounded four times before he was captured by Americans in April 1945 and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp.
Böll became a full-time writer at the age of 30. His first novel, Der Zug war pünktlich (The Train Was on Time), was published in 1949. Many other novels, short stories, radio plays and essay collections followed, and in 1972 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature. He was the first German-born author to receive this award since Nelly Sachs in 1966. His work has been translated into more than 30 languages, and he is one of Germany's most widely read authors. His best-known works are Billiards at Half-past Nine, The Clown, Group Portrait with Lady, The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, and The Safety Net, apart from many short stories.
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Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse (German pronunciation: [maʁˈkuːzə]; July 19, 1898 – July 29, 1979) was a German Jewish philosopher, sociologist and political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Active in the United States after 1934, his intellectual concerns were the dehumanizing effects of capitalism and modern technology. Celebrated as the "Father of the New Left," his best known works are Eros and Civilization (1955) and One-Dimensional Man (1964). His Marxist scholarship inspired many radical intellectuals and political activists in the 1960s and '70s, both in the U.S. and internationally.
Herbert Marcuse was born in Berlin to Carl Marcuse and Gertrud Kreslawsky and raised in a Jewish family. In 1916 he was drafted into the German Army, but only worked in horse stables in Berlin during World War I. He then became a member of a Soldiers' Council that participated in the aborted socialist Spartacist uprising. He completed his Ph.D. thesis at the University of Freiburg in 1922 on the German Künstlerroman after which he moved back to Berlin, where he worked in publishing. In 1924 he married Sophie Wertheim, a mathematician. He returned to Freiburg in 1928 to study with Edmund Husserl and write a Habilitation with Martin Heidegger, which was published in 1932 as Hegel's Ontology and Theory of Historicity. This study was written in the context of the Hegel renaissance that was taking place in Europe with an emphasis on Hegel's ontology of life and history, idealist theory of spirit and dialectic. With his academic career blocked by the rise of the Third Reich, in 1933 Marcuse joined the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research.
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Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse (German pronunciation: [ˈhɛɐ̯man ˈhɛsə]; July 2, 1877 – August 9, 1962) was a German poet, novelist, and painter. In 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature. His best-known works include Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, and The Glass Bead Game (also known as Magister Ludi), each of which explores an individual's search for authenticity, self-knowledge and spirituality.
Hermann Hesse was born on 2 July 1877 in the Black Forest town of Calw in Württemberg, Germany. Both of Hesse's parents served in India at a mission under the auspices of the Basel Mission, a Protestant Christian missionary society. Hesse's mother, Marie Gundert, was born at such a mission in India in 1842. In describing her own childhood, she said, "A happy child I was not..." As was usual among missionaries at the time, she was left behind in Europe at the age of four when her parents went to India. In her teens she attempted to rebel against her authoritarian father, Hermann Gundert, but finally submitted.
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Hermann Weyl
Hermann Klaus Hugo Weyl FRS (9 November 1885 – 8 December 1955) was a German mathematician and theoretical physicist. Although much of his working life was spent in Zürich, Switzerland and then Princeton, he is associated with the University of Göttingen tradition of mathematics, represented by David Hilbert and Hermann Minkowski. His research has had major significance for theoretical physics as well as purely mathematical disciplines including number theory. He was one of the most influential mathematicians of the twentieth century, and an important member of the Institute for Advanced Study during its early years.
Weyl published technical and some general works on space, time, matter, philosophy, logic, symmetry and the history of mathematics. He was one of the first to conceive of combining general relativity with the laws of electromagnetism. While no mathematician of his generation aspired to the 'universalism' of Henri Poincaré or Hilbert, Weyl came as close as anyone. Michael Atiyah, in particular, has commented that whenever he examined a mathematical topic, he found that Weyl had preceded him (The Mathematical Intelligencer (1984), vol.6 no.1).
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History of Germany
The concept of Germany as a distinct region in central Europe can be traced to Roman commander Julius Caesar, who referred to the unconquered area east of the Rhine as Germania, thus distinguishing it from Gaul (France), which he had conquered. The victory of the Germanic tribes in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest (AD 9) prevented annexation by the Roman Empire. Following the fall of the Roman Empire, the Franks conquered the other West Germanic tribes. When the Frankish Empire was divided among Charlemagne's heirs in 843, the eastern part became East Francia. In 962, Otto I became the first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, the medieval German state.
In the High Middle Ages, the dukes and princes of the empire gained power at the expense of the emperors. Martin Luther led the Protestant Reformation against the Catholic Church after 1517, as the northern states became Protestant, while the southern states remained Catholic. They clashed in the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), which was ruinous to the twenty million civilians. 1648 marked the effective end of the Holy Roman Empire and the beginning of the modern nation-state system, with Germany divided into numerous independent states, such as Prussia, Bavaria and Saxony.
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Horst Seehofer
Horst Lorenz Seehofer (born 4 July 1949) is a German politician (CSU). He served as the Federal Minister for Health and Social Security from 1992 to 1998 and as the Federal Minister of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection in the cabinet of Angela Merkel from 2005 to 2008. In October 2008 he became chairman of the CSU and Minister-President of Bavaria.
He is married to Karin Seehofer.
He has been a member of the Lower House of the German Parliament (Bundestag) in Germany since 1980. Horst Seehofer was Federal Minister for Health and Social Security from 1992 to 1998 in the cabinet of Helmut Kohl. He then became assistant chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group of the Bundestag in October 1998. Because of his disagreement with flat-rate contributions (Gesundheitsprämie) to the federal health insurance he resigned from his post on 22 November 2004 but remained the assistant chairman of the CSU and kept his mandate. Since joining the Bundestag Horst Seehofer has kept his mandate as a directly elected delegate (Direktkandidat) from his Constituency Ingolstadt. At the 2005 federal election he received 65.9 percent of the votes in his district. Seehofer was appointed Federal Minister of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection in the cabinet of Angela Merkel and stayed in office from 2005 to 2008.
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Hugo Junkers
Hugo Junkers (3 February 1859 – 3 February 1935) was an innovative German engineer, as his many patents in varied areas (gas engines, aeroplanes) show. In 1915, he pioneered the first great change in aviation materials and design technology, away from wood and fabric materials braced by wire rigging, towards all-metal, cantilever-winged monoplane aircraft that had little to no external bracing.
Hugo Junkers is mainly known in connection with aircraft bearing his name. This includes such he reluctantly developed for the German Empire during World War I, later in minor association with Anthony Fokker, as well as civil aircraft designs during the Interwar Period produced by Junkers Flugzeugwerke (Junkers Aircraft Works). Junkers, a pacifist and not on good terms with the Nazis, died in 1935 and was not involved in the development of Junkers military aircraft for the Third Reich's Luftwaffe before or during World War II.
Born in Rheydt, Rhine Province, Junkers studied in Charlottenburg and Aachen. He was a professor of mechanical engineering at Aachen between 1897 and 1912. Working as an engineer, Junkers devised, patented, and exploited gas engines, heaters, a calorie meter and other inventions.
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Huns
The Huns were a group of nomadic people who, appearing from east of the Volga River, migrated into Europe c. AD 370 and established the vast Hunnic Empire there. Since de Guignes linked them with the Xiongnu, who had been northern neighbours of China 300 years prior to the emergence of the Huns, considerable scholarly effort has been devoted to investigating such a connection. However, there is no scholarly consensus on a direct connection between the dominant element of the Xiongnu and that of the Huns.Priscus mentions that the Huns had a language of their own; little of it has survived and its relationships have been the subject of debate for centuries. Most authorities suppose that it may have been a member of the Oghuric branch of the Turkic language family, with the languages Bulgar, Khazar, Turkic Avar and Chuvash. Numerous other languages were spoken within the Hun pax including East Germanic, which was widely used as a lingua franca in the Hunnic territories. Their main military technique was mounted archery.
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Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant (German pronunciation: [ɪˈmaːnu̯eːl ˈkant]; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher from Königsberg (today Kaliningrad of Russia), who researched, lectured, and wrote on philosophy and anthropology during the Enlightenment at the end of the 18th century. At the time, there were major successes and advances in the sciences (for example, Isaac Newton, Carl Friedrich Gauss, and Robert Boyle) applying reason and logic.
Kant’s major work, the Critique of Pure Reason (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 1781), aimed to unite reason with experience to move beyond what he took to be failures of traditional philosophy and metaphysics. He hoped to end an age of speculation where objects outside experience were used to support what he saw as futile theories, while opposing the skepticism of thinkers such as Descartes, Berkeley and Hume.
He stated:
Kant proposed a ‘Copernican Revolution’ in reverse, saying that:
Kant published other important works on ethics, religion, law, aesthetics, astronomy, and history. These included the Critique of Practical Reason (Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, 1788) and the Metaphysics of Morals (Die Metaphysik der Sitten, 1797), which dealt with ethics. And the Critique of Judgment (Kritik der Urteilskraft, 1790), which looks at aesthetics and teleology. He aimed to resolve disputes between empirical and rationalist approaches. The former asserted that all knowledge comes through experience; the latter maintained that reason and innate ideas were prior. Kant argued that experience is purely subjective without first being processed by pure reason. He also said that using reason without applying it to experience only leads to theoretical illusions. The free and proper exercise of reason by the individual was both a theme of the Enlightenment, and of Kant's approaches to the various problems of philosophy.
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Iranian peoples
The Iranian peoples (Iranic peoples) are an Indo-European ethnic-linguistic group that comprise the speakers of Iranian languages, a major branch of the Indo-European language family, as such forming a branch of the Indo-European-speaking peoples. Their historical areas of settlement were on the Iranian plateau, and comprised most of Iran and certain areas of Central Asia such as Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and most of Afghanistan, some parts of western Pakistan, northern Iraq and eastern Turkey, and scattered parts of the Caucasus Mountains. Their current distribution spreads across the Iranian plateau, and stretches from Pakistan's Indus River in the east to eastern Turkey in the west, and from Central Asia and the Caucasus in the north to the Persian Gulf in the south – a region that is sometimes called the Iranian cultural continent, or Greater Persia by scholars, and represents the extent of the Iranian languages and influence of the Persian People, through the geopolitical reach of the Persian empire.
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Jews
The Jews (Hebrew: יְהוּדִים ISO 259-3 Yhudim Israeli pronunciation [jehuˈdim]), also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and an ethnoreligious group, originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation.Converts to Judaism, whose status as Jews within the Jewish ethnos is equal to those born into it, have been absorbed into the Jewish people throughout the millennia.
In Jewish tradition, Jewish ancestry is traced to the Biblical patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the second millennium BCE. The modern State of Israel defines itself as a Jewish state in its Basic Laws, and Israel's Law of Return states: "Every Jew has the right to come to this country as an oleh." Israel is the only country where Jews are a majority of the population. Jews achieved political autonomy twice before in ancient history. The first of these periods lasted from 1350 to 586 BCE, and encompassed the periods of the Judges, the United Monarchy, and the Divided Monarchy of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, ending with the destruction of the First Temple. The second was the period of the Hasmonean Kingdom spanning from 140 to 37 BCE. Since the destruction of the First Temple, most Jews have lived in diaspora. A minority in every country in which they live (except Israel), they have frequently experienced persecution throughout history, resulting in a population that has fluctuated both in numbers and distribution over the centuries.
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Joachim Gauck
Joachim Gauck pronounced [joːˈʔaxiːm ɡaʊ̯k] (born 24 January 1940 in Rostock) is the current President of Germany (since 18 March 2012). A former Lutheran pastor, he came to prominence as an anti-communist civil rights activist in East Germany.
During the Peaceful Revolution, he was a co-founder of the New Forum opposition movement in East Germany, which contributed to the downfall of the Soviet-backed dictatorship of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). In 1990 he served as a member of the only freely elected People's Chamber for the Alliance 90. Following German reunification, he was elected by the Bundestag as the first Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Archives, serving from 1990 to 2000. As Federal Commissioner, he earned recognition as a "Stasi hunter" and "tireless pro-democracy advocate," exposing the crimes of the former communist secret police.
He was nominated as the candidate of the SPD and the Greens for President of Germany in the 2010 election, but narrowly lost to Christian Wulff, the candidate of the government coalition. His candidacy was met by significant approval of the population and the media; Der Spiegel described him as "the better President" and the Bild called him "the president of hearts." After Christian Wulff had stepped down, Gauck was elected President with 991 of 1228 votes in the Federal Convention in the 2012 election, as a nonpartisan consensus candidate of the CDU, the CSU, the FDP, the SPD and the Greens.
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Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms (pronounced [joːˈhanəs ˈbʁaːms]; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene. In his lifetime, Brahms's popularity and influence were considerable; following a comment by the nineteenth-century conductor Hans von Bülow, he is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the Three Bs.
Brahms composed for piano, chamber ensembles, symphony orchestra, and for voice and chorus. A virtuoso pianist, he premiered many of his own works; he also worked with some of the leading performers of his time, including the pianist Clara Schumann and the violinist Joseph Joachim. Many of his works have become staples of the modern concert repertoire. Brahms, an uncompromising perfectionist, destroyed many of his works and left some of them unpublished.
Brahms is often considered both a traditionalist and an innovator. His music is firmly rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of the Baroque and Classical masters. He was a master of counterpoint, the complex and highly disciplined art for which Johann Sebastian Bach is famous, and also of development, a compositional ethos pioneered by Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven. Brahms aimed to honour the "purity" of these venerable "German" structures and advance them into a Romantic idiom, in the process creating bold new approaches to harmony and melody. While many contemporaries found his music too academic, his contribution and craftsmanship have been admired by subsequent figures as diverse as Arnold Schoenberg and Edward Elgar. The diligent, highly constructed nature of Brahms's works was a starting point and an inspiration for a generation of composers.
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Johannes Gutenberg
Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg ( /joʊˌhɑːnɨs ˈɡuːtənbɜrɡ/ yoh-HAH-nəs GOO-tən-burɡ; c. 1398 – February 3, 1468) was a German blacksmith, goldsmith, printer, and publisher who introduced printing to Europe. His invention of mechanical movable type printing started the Printing Revolution and is widely regarded as the most important event of the modern period. It played a key role in the development of the Renaissance, Reformation, the Age of Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution and laid the material basis for the modern knowledge-based economy and the spread of learning to the masses.
Gutenberg was the first European to use movable type printing, in around 1439. Among his many contributions to printing are: the invention of a process for mass-producing movable type; the use of oil-based ink; and the use of a wooden printing press similar to the agricultural screw presses of the period. His truly epochal invention was the combination of these elements into a practical system which allowed the mass production of printed books and was economically viable for printers and readers alike. Gutenberg's method for making type is traditionally considered to have included a type metal alloy and a hand mould for casting type.
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Josef von Sternberg
Josef von Sternberg (29 May 1894 – 22 December 1969) — born Jonas Sternberg — was an Austrian-American film director. He is particularly noted for his distinctive mise en scène, use of lighting and soft lens, and seven-film collaboration with actress Marlene Dietrich.
Von Sternberg was born Jonas Sternberg to a Jewish family in Vienna. When he was two years old the family moved to America, and he spent most of his childhood in New York City and Lynbrook, New York. His father, Moses (Morris) Sternberg, a former soldier in the army of Austria-Hungary, twice tried to make a home for the family in the US before finding employment as a lace worker. (The false aristocratic title 'von' was added in 1925 by actor/co-producer Elliott Dexter during the production of By Divine Right, supposedly to "even up" the credits as they appeared on screen. Sternberg did not protest, since it invited comparison with his hero, Erich von Stroheim.[citation needed]).
Von Sternberg dropped out of Jamaica High School and worked as an errand boy in a lace warehouse. He later obtained a job cleaning and repairing movie prints, and by about 1915 found himself working for William A. Brady at the World Film Company at Fort Lee, New Jersey, mentored by Emile Chautard and other French-speaking directors and cinematographers at World. Chautard hired him as assistant director in 1919 for a version of The Mystery of the Yellow Room, and Sternberg made his directorial debut in 1925 with The Salvation Hunters, called by some the first American independent film.[who?]
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Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (Classical Latin: [ˈɡaː.i.ʊs ˈjuː.lɪ.ʊs ˈkaj.sar], July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire.
In 60 BC, Caesar, Crassus and Pompey formed a political alliance that was to dominate Roman politics for several years. Their attempts to amass power through populist tactics were opposed by the conservative elite within the Roman Senate[citation needed], among them Cato the Younger with the frequent support of Cicero. Caesar's conquest of Gaul, completed by 51 BC, extended Rome's territory to the English Channel and the Rhine. Caesar became the first Roman general to cross both when he built a bridge across the Rhine and conducted the first invasion of Britain.
These achievements granted him unmatched military power and threatened to eclipse Pompey's standing. The balance of power was further upset by the death of Crassus in 53 BC. Political realignments in Rome finally led to a standoff between Caesar and Pompey, the latter having taken up the cause of the Senate. Ordered by the Senate to stand trial in Rome for various charges, Caesar marched on Rome with one legion—legio XIII—from Gaul to Italy, crossing the Rubicon in 49 BC. This sparked a civil war from which he emerged as the unrivaled leader of the Roman world.
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Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas ( /ˈjɜrɡən/ or /ˈjʊərɡən ˈhɑːbərmɑːs/;German: [ˈjʏʁɡən ˈhaːbɐmaːs]; born June 18, 1929) is a German sociologist, geographer and philosopher in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. He is perhaps best known for his theory on the concepts of 'communicative rationality' and the 'public sphere'. His work focuses on the foundations of social theory and epistemology, the analysis of advanced capitalistic societies and democracy, the rule of law in a critical social-evolutionary context, and contemporary politics, particularly German politics. Habermas's theoretical system is devoted to revealing the possibility of reason, emancipation, and rational-critical communication latent in modern institutions and in the human capacity to deliberate and pursue rational interests. Habermas is known for his work on the concept of modernity, particularly with respect to the discussions of "rationalization" originally set forth by Max Weber. While influenced by American pragmatism, action theory, and even poststructuralism, many of the central tenets of Habermas' thought remain broadly Marxist in nature. Global polls identified him as one of the leading intellectuals of the present day.
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Jürgen Klinsmann
Jürgen Klinsmann (born 30 July 1964 in Göppingen) is a German football manager and former player who is currently the coach of the United States men's National team. As a player, Klinsmann played for several prominent clubs in Europe and was part of the West German team that won the 1990 FIFA World Cup and the German one that won the 1996 UEFA European Championship. One of West Germany's/Germany's premier strikers during the 1990s, Klinsmann scored in all six major international tournaments he participated, from Euro 1988 to 1998 World Cup.
He managed the German national team to a third-place finish in the 2006 World Cup. On 12 July 2006, Klinsmann officially announced that he would step down as Germany's coach after two years in charge and be replaced by assistant coach Joachim Löw. He took over as coach of Bayern Munich in July 2008, when Ottmar Hitzfeld stepped down to take over as the head coach of the Swiss National Team. On 27 April 2009 he was released early, even though he had won five of the previous seven league games and was only three points behind league leader VfL Wolfsburg. In the jointly initiated reforms at Bayern it emerged there was a severe clash of opinions between coach and club management.
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Jürgen Schmidhuber
Jürgen Schmidhuber (born 17 January 1963 in Munich) is a computer scientist and artist known for his work on machine learning, universal Artificial Intelligence (AI), artificial neural networks, digital physics, and low-complexity art. His contributions also include generalizations of Kolmogorov complexity and the Speed Prior. From 2004 to 2009 he was professor of Cognitive Robotics at the Tech. University Munich. Since 1995 he has been co-director of the Swiss AI Lab IDSIA in Lugano, since 2009 also professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Lugano. In honor of his achievements he was elected to the European Academy of Sciences and Arts in 2008.
The dynamic recurrent neural networks developed in his lab are simplified mathematical models of the biological neural networks found in human brains. A particularly successful model of this type is called Long short term memory. From training sequences it learns to solve numerous tasks unsolvable by previous such models. Applications range from automatic music composition to speech recognition, reinforcement learning and robotics in partially observable environments. As of 2010, his group has the best results on benchmarks in automatic handwriting recognition, obtained with deep neural networks and recurrent neural networks.
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Karl Benz
Karl Friedrich Benz (help·info) (November 25, 1844 – April 4, 1929) was a German engine designer and car engineer, generally regarded as the inventor of the gasoline-powered automobile, and together with Bertha Benz pioneering founder of the automobile manufacturer Mercedes-Benz. Other German contemporaries, Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach working as partners, also worked on similar types of inventions, without knowledge of the work of the other, but Benz patented his work first, and, subsequently patented all the processes that made the internal combustion engine feasible for use in an automobile. In 1879 his first engine patent was granted to him and in 1886 Benz was granted a patent for his first automobile.
Karl Benz was born Karl Friedrich Michael Vaillant, in Karlsruhe, Baden, which is part of modern Germany, to Josephine Vaillant and a locomotive driver, Johann George Benz, whom she married a few months later. When he was two years old, his father was killed in a railway accident, and his name was changed to Karl Friedrich Benz in remembrance of his father.
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Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement. He published various books during his lifetime, with the most notable being The Communist Manifesto (1848) and Capital (1867–1894); some of his works were co-written with his friend and fellow German revolutionary socialist, Friedrich Engels.
Born into a wealthy middle class family in Trier, formerly in Prussian Rhineland now called Rhineland-Palatinate, Marx studied at both the University of Bonn and the University of Berlin, where he became interested in the philosophical ideas of the Young Hegelians. In 1836, he became engaged to Jenny von Westphalen, marrying her in 1843. After his studies, he wrote for a radical newspaper in Cologne, and began to work out his theory of dialectical materialism. Moving to Paris in 1843, he began writing for other radical newspapers. He met Engels in Paris, and the two men worked together on a series of books. Exiled to Brussels, he became a leading figure of the Communist League, before moving back to Cologne, where he founded his own newspaper. In 1849 he was exiled again and moved to London together with his wife and children. In London, where the family was reduced to poverty, Marx continued writing and formulating his theories about the nature of society and how he believed it could be improved, and also campaigned for socialism—he became a significant figure in the International Workingmen's Association.
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Karl Weierstrass
Karl Theodor Wilhelm Weierstrass (German: Weierstraß; 31 October 1815 – 19 February 1897) was a German mathematician who is often cited as the "father of modern analysis".
Weierstrass was born in Ostenfelde, part of Ennigerloh, Province of Westphalia.
Weierstrass was the son of Wilhelm Weierstrass, a government official, and Theodora Vonderforst. His interest in mathematics began while he was a Gymnasium student at Theodorianum in Paderborn. He was sent to the University of Bonn upon graduation to prepare for a government position. Because his studies were to be in the fields of law, economics, and finance, he was immediately in conflict with his hopes to study mathematics. He resolved the conflict by paying little heed to his planned course of study, but continued private study in mathematics. The outcome was to leave the university without a degree. After that he studied mathematics at the University of Münster (which was even at this time very famous for mathematics) and his father was able to obtain a place for him in a teacher training school in Münster. Later he was certified as a teacher in that city. During this period of study, Weierstrass attended the lectures of Christoph Gudermann and became interested in elliptic functions. In 1843 he taught in Deutsch-Krone in Westprussia and since 1848 he taught at the Lyceum Hosianum in Braunsberg. Besides mathematics he also taught physics, botanics and gymnastics.
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Kjell Espmark
Professor Kjell Erik Espmark (born 19 February 1930 in Strömsund, Sweden), is a writer, literary historian, member of the Swedish Academy and Professor of the History of Literature at Stockholm University. He was elected to the Swedish Academy on 5 March 1981 and admitted on 20 December 1981. Kjell Espmark succeeded the linguist Elias Wessén to Seat No.16.
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Konrad Zuse
Konrad Zuse (German pronunciation: [ˈkɔnʁat ˈtsuːzə]; 1910–1995) was a German civil engineer and computer pioneer. His greatest achievement was the world's first functional program-controlled Turing-complete computer, the Z3, which became operational in May 1941.
Zuse was also noted for the S2 computing machine, considered the first process-controlled computer. He founded one of the earliest computer businesses in 1941, producing the Z4, which became the world's first commercial computer. In 1946, he designed the first high-level programming language, Plankalkül. In 1969, Zuse suggested the concept of a computation-based universe in his book Rechnender Raum (Calculating Space).
Much of his early work was financed by his family and commerce, but after 1939 he was given resources by the Nazi German government. Due to World War II, Zuse's work went largely unnoticed in the United Kingdom and the United States. Possibly his first documented influence on a US company was IBM's option on his patents in 1946.
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Lothar Matthäus
Lothar Herbert Matthäus German pronunciation: [ˈloːtaɐ̯ maˈtɛːʊs], (born 21 March 1961 in Erlangen, West Germany) is a German football manager and former player.
In 1990, he was named European Footballer of the Year and World Soccer Player of the Year after captaining West Germany to victory in the 1990 World Cup. One year later, he was also named the first ever FIFA World Player of the Year.
He has played in five World Cups (1982, 1986, 1990, 1994, 1998) more than any other outfield player, and holds the record for the most World Cup matches played (25 games). He also won Euro 80, and played in Euro 84, Euro 88, and Euro 2000. In 1999, he was again voted German Footballer of the Year despite being 38 years old. He is the most capped German player of all time, retiring with a total of 150 appearances (83 of them when the team was called West Germany) and 23 goals for the German national team. Matthäus is a member of the FIFA 100 – a list of 125 of the greatest living football players chosen by Pelé. Maradona said about Matthäus "he is the best rival I've ever had. I guess that's enough to define him" in his book Yo soy el Diego (I am Diego).
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Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (i/ˈlʊdvɪɡ væn ˈbeɪt.hoʊvən/; German pronunciation: [ˈluːtvɪç fan ˈbeːt.hoːfən] ( listen); baptized 17 December 1770 – 26 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential of all composers.
Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of the Holy Roman Empire, Beethoven moved to Vienna in his early 20s, studying with Joseph Haydn and quickly gaining a reputation as a virtuoso pianist. His hearing began to deteriorate in his late twenties, yet he continued to compose, conduct, and perform, even after becoming completely deaf.
Beethoven was the grandson of a musician of Flemish origin named Lodewijk van Beethoven (1712–73) who moved at the age of twenty to Bonn. Lodewijk (Ludwig is the German cognate of Dutch Lodewijk) was employed as a bass singer at the court of the Elector of Cologne, eventually rising to become Kapellmeister (music director). Lodewijk had one son, Johann (1740–1792), who worked as a tenor in the same musical establishment, and gave lessons on piano and violin to supplement his income. Johann married Maria Magdalena Keverich in 1767; she was the daughter of Johann Heinrich Keverich, who had been the head chef at the court of the Archbishopric of Trier.
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Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger (September 26, 1889 – May 26, 1976); German pronunciation: [ˈmaɐ̯tiːn ˈhaɪdɛɡɐ]) was a German philosopher known for his existential and phenomenological explorations of the "question of Being."
Heidegger argues that philosophy is preoccupied with what exists and has forgotten the question of the "ground" of being. We find ourselves "always already" fallen into a world that already existed; but he insists that we have forgotten the basic question of what being itself is. This question defines our central nature. He argues that we are practical agents, caring and concerned about our projects in the world, and allowing it to reveal, or "unconceal" itself to us. He also says that our manipulation of reality is often harmful and hides our true being as essentially limited participants, not masters, of the world which we discover.
Heidegger wrote about these issues in his best-known book, Being and Time (1927), which is considered to be one of the most important philosophical works of the 20th century. Heidegger's influence is far reaching, from philosophy to deconstructionism and literary theory, theology, architecture, and artificial intelligence.
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Martin Luther
Martin Luther (help·info) (10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German monk, priest, professor of theology and iconic figure of the Protestant Reformation. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517. His refusal to retract all of his writings at the demand of Pope Leo X in 1520 and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms in 1521 resulted in his excommunication by the pope and condemnation as an outlaw by the Emperor.
Luther taught that salvation is not earned by good deeds but received only as a free gift of God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ as redeemer from sin. His theology challenged the authority of the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church by teaching that the Bible is the only source of divinely revealed knowledge and opposed sacerdotalism by considering all baptized Christians to be a holy priesthood. Those who identify with Luther's teachings are called Lutherans.
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Matthias Grünewald
Matthias Grünewald or "Mathis" (as first name), "Gothart" or "Neithardt" (as surname), (c. 1470 – August 31, 1528), was a German Renaissance painter of religious works, who ignored Renaissance classicism to continue the expressive and intense style of late medieval Central European art into the 16th century.
Only ten paintings—several consisting of many panels—and thirty-five drawings survive, all religious, although many others were lost at sea in the Baltic on their way to Sweden as war booty. His reputation was obscured until the late nineteenth century, and many of his paintings were attributed to Albrecht Dürer, who is now seen as his stylistic antithesis. His largest and most famous work is the Isenheim Altarpiece created between 1506-1515.
The details of his life are unusually unclear for a painter of his significance at this date, despite the fact that his commissions show that he had reasonable recognition in his own lifetime. The first source for his biography is the German art historian Joachim von Sandrart, who describes him as around 1505 working on the exterior decoration of an altarpiece by Albrecht Dürer in Frankfurt; this is the sort of work typically performed by apprentices and therefore an estimate of his age can be reached, suggesting he was born in 1480-83. Sandrart records that Grünewald had as an apprentice the painter Hans Grimmer, who would become famous in his time, but most of whose works were lost in the Thirty Years' War. Sandrart describes Grünewald as leading a withdrawn and melancholy life, and marrying unhappily.
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Max Born
Max Born (11 December 1882 – 5 January 1970) was a German-British physicist and mathematician who was instrumental in the development of quantum mechanics. He also made contributions to solid-state physics and optics and supervised the work of a number of notable physicists in the 1920s and 30s. Born won the 1954 Nobel Prize in Physics (shared with Walther Bothe).
Max was born on 11 December 1882 in Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland), which at Born's birth was in the Prussian Province of Silesia in the German Empire, to a family of Jewish descent. He was one of two children born to Gustav Born, (b. 22 April 1850, Kempen, d. 6 July 1900, Breslau), an anatomist and embryologist, and Margarethe ('Gretchen') Kauffmann (b. 22 January 1856, Tannhausen, d. 29 August 1886, Breslau), from a Silesian family of industrialists.
Gustav and Gretchen married on 7 May 1881. She died when Max was four years old, on 29 August 1886.
Max had a sister Käthe (b. 5 March 1884), and a half-brother Wolfgang (b. 21 October 1892) from his father's second marriage (m. 13 September 1891) with Bertha Lipstein.
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Max Ernst
Max Ernst (2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was one of the primary pioneers of the Dada movement and Surrealism.
Ernst was born on April 2, 1891, in Brühl, near Cologne, the third of nine children of a middle-class Catholic family. His father Philipp Ernst was a teacher of the deaf and an amateur painter. A devout Christian and a strict disciplinarian, he inspired in his son a penchant for defying authority, while his interest in painting and sketching in nature influenced Max Ernst to take up painting himself. In 1909 Ernst enrolled in the University of Bonn, studying philosophy, art history, literature, psychology and psychiatry. He visited asylums and became fascinated with the art of the mentally ill patients; he also started painting this year, producing sketches in the garden of the Brühl castle and portraits of his sister and himself. In 1911 Ernst befriended August Macke and joined his Die Rheinischen Expressionisten group of artists, deciding to become an artist. In 1912 he visited the Sonderbund exhibition in Cologne, where works by Pablo Picasso and post-Impressionists such as Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin profoundly influenced his approach to art. His own work was exhibited the same year together with that of the Das Junge Rheinland group, at Galerie Feldman in Cologne, and then in several group exhibitions in 1913.
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Max Horkheimer
Max Horkheimer (February 14, 1895 – July 7, 1973) was a German-Jewish philosopher-sociologist, famous for his work in critical theory as a member of the 'Frankfurt School' of social research. His most important works include The Eclipse of Reason (1947) and, in collaboration with Theodor Adorno, The Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947). Through the Frankfurt School, Horkheimer planned, supported and made other significant works possible.
Horkheimer was born in the Zuffenhausen district of Stuttgart, then capital of the Kingdom of Württemberg within the German Empire, to a wealthy Jewish family. Due to parental pressure, Horkheimer left secondary school at the age of sixteen to work in his father's factory. In 1916, his manufacturing career ended and he was drafted into World War I. After World War I, he enrolled at Munich University, where he studied philosophy and psychology. After university, Horkheimer moved to Frankfurt am Main, where he studied under Hans Cornelius. There, he met Theodor Adorno, several years his junior, with whom he would strike a lasting friendship and a fruitful collaborative relationship.
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Max Planck
Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck, ForMemRS, (April 23, 1858 – October 4, 1947) was a German physicist who discovered quantum physics, initiating a revolution in natural science and philosophy. He is regarded as the founder of quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.
Planck came from a traditional, intellectual family. His paternal great-grandfather and grandfather were both theology professors in Göttingen; his father was a law professor in Kiel and Munich; and his paternal uncle was a judge.
Planck was born in Kiel, Holstein, to Johann Julius Wilhelm Planck and his second wife, Emma Patzig. He was baptised with the name of Karl Ernst Ludwig Marx Planck; of his given names, Marx (a now obsolete variant of Markus or maybe simply an error for Max, which is actually short for Maximilian) was indicated as the primary name. However, by the age of ten he signed with the name Max and used this for the rest of his life.
He was the sixth child in the family, though two of his siblings were from his father's first marriage. Among his earliest memories was the marching of Prussian and Austrian troops into Kiel during the Danish-Prussian war of 1864. In 1867 the family moved to Munich, and Planck enrolled in the Maximilians gymnasium school, where he came under the tutelage of Hermann Müller, a mathematician who took an interest in the youth, and taught him astronomy and mechanics as well as mathematics. It was from Müller that Planck first learned the principle of conservation of energy. Planck graduated early, at age 17. This is how Planck first came in contact with the field of physics.
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Max Skladanowsky
Max Skladanowsky (April 30, 1863 – November 30, 1939) was a German inventor and early filmmaker. Along with his brother Emil, he invented the Bioscop, an early movie projector the Skladanowsky brothers used to display the first moving picture show to a paying audience on November 1, 1895, some two months before the public debut of the Lumière Brothers' technically superior Cinématographe.
Born in Berlin to a glazier, Skladanowsky was apprenticed as a photographer and glass painter, which led to an interest in magic lanterns. In 1879, he began to tour Germany and Central Europe with his father Carl and elder brother Emil, giving dissolving magic lantern shows. In the early 1890s he built a film camera along with Emil, and in 1895 the brothers produced the Bioskop. The Bioskop, which was inspired by magic-lantern technology, used two loops of 54mm film, one frame being projected alternately from each. This made it possible for the Bioskop to project at 16 frames per second, a speed sufficient to create the illusion of movement.
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Merovingian
The Merovingians were a Salian Frankish dynasty that came to rule the Franks in a region known as Francia in Latin, largely corresponding to ancient Gaul, for 300 years from the middle of the 5th century.
The Merovingian dynasty was founded by Childeric I (c.457 – 481) the son of Merovech, leader of the Salian Franks, but it was his famous son Clovis I (481 – 511) who united all of Gaul under Merovingian rule.
After the death of Clovis there were frequent clashes between different branches of the family, but when threatened by its neighbours the Merovingians presented a strong united front.
During the final century of the Merovingian rule, the dynasty was increasingly pushed into a ceremonial role. The Merovingian rule ended in March 752 when Pope Zachary formally deposed Childeric III. Zachary's successor, Pope Stephen II, confirmed and annointed Pepin the Short, in 754 beginning the Carolingian monarchy.
The Merovingian ruling family were sometimes referred to as the "long-haired kings" (Latin reges criniti) by contemporaries, as their long hair distinguished them among the Franks, who commonly cut their hair short. The term "Merovingian" comes from medieval Latin Merovingi or Merohingi ("sons of Merovech"), an alteration of an unattested Old West Low Franconian form, akin to their dynasty's Old English name Merewīowing, with the final -ing being a typical patronymic suffix.
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Michael Schumacher
Michael Schumacher (German pronunciation: [ˈmɪçaʔeːl ˈʃuːmaxɐ] ( listen); born 3 January 1969) is a German Formula One racing driver for the Mercedes team. Schumacher is a seven-time World Champion and is widely regarded as one of the greatest F1 drivers of all time. He holds many of the formula's driver records, including most championships, race victories, fastest laps, pole positions, points scored and most races won in a single season – 13 in 2004. In 2002 he became the only driver in Formula One history to finish in the top three in every race of a season and then also broke the record for most consecutive podium finishes. According to the official Formula One website he is "statistically the greatest driver the sport has ever seen".
After beginning with karting, Schumacher won German drivers' championships in Formula König and Formula Three before joining Mercedes in the World Sportscar Championship. After one Mercedes-funded race for the Jordan Formula One team Schumacher signed as a driver for the Benetton Formula One team in 1991. After winning consecutive championships with Benetton in 1994/5, Schumacher moved to Ferrari in 1996 and won another five consecutive drivers' titles with them from 2000 to 2004. Schumacher retired from Formula One driving in 2006 staying with Ferrari as an advisor. Schumacher agreed to return for Ferrari part-way through 2009, as cover for the badly injured Felipe Massa, but was prevented by a neck injury. He later signed a three-year contract to drive for the new Mercedes GP team starting in 2010.
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Migration Period
The Migration Period, also known as the Barbarian Invasions (German: Völkerwanderung "migration of peoples"), was a period of intensified human migration in Europe from about 400 to 800 AD. This period marked the transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. Migrations were catalyzed by profound changes within the Roman Empire and on its "barbarian frontier". The migrants who came first were Germanic tribes such as the Goths, Vandals, Lombards, Suebi, Frisii and Franks; they were later pushed westwards by the Huns, Avars, Slavs, Bulgars and Alans. Later migrations (such as the Arab conquest and Viking, Magyar, Moorish, Turkic, and Mongol invasions) also had significant effects (especially in North Africa, the Iberian peninsula, Anatolia and Central and Eastern Europe); however, they are outside the scope of the Migration Period.
Germanic peoples moved out of southern Scandinavia, Denmark and adjacent lands between the Elbe and Oder rivers after 1000 BC. The first wave moved westward and southward (pushing the resident Celts west to the Rhine River by about 200 BC) and moving into southern Germany up to the Roman province of Gaul by 100 BC, where they were stopped by Gaius Marius and Julius Caesar. It is this western group who was described by the Roman historian Tacitus (56 – 117 AD) and Julius Caesar (100 - 44 BC). A later wave of German tribes migrated eastward and southward from Scandinavia between 600 and 300 BC to the opposite coast of the Baltic Sea, moving up the Vistula near the Carpathians. During Tacitus' era they included lesser-known tribes such as the Tencteri, Cherusci, Hermunduri and Chatti; however, a period of federation and intermarriage resulted in the familiar groups known as the Alamanni, Franks, Saxons, Frisians and Thuringians.
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Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte (French: Napoléon Bonaparte [napoleɔ̃ bɔnɑpaʁt]) (15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821) was a French military and political leader who rose to prominence during the latter stages of the French Revolution. As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815. His legal reform, the Napoleonic Code, has been a major influence on many civil law jurisdictions worldwide, but he is best remembered for his role in the wars led against France by a series of coalitions, the so-called Napoleonic Wars. He established hegemony over most of continental Europe and sought to spread the ideals of the French Revolution, while consolidating an imperial monarchy which restored aspects of the deposed Ancien Régime. Due to his success in these wars, often against numerically superior enemies, he is generally regarded as one of the greatest military commanders of all time and his campaigns are studied at military academies throughout much of the world.
Napoleon was born in Corsica to parents of noble Genoese ancestry, and trained as an artillery officer in mainland France. He rose to prominence under the French First Republic and led successful campaigns against the First and Second Coalitions arrayed against France. In 1799, he staged a coup d'état and installed himself as First Consul; five years later the French Senate proclaimed him emperor. In the first decade of the 19th century, the French Empire under Napoleon engaged in a series of conflicts—the Napoleonic Wars—involving every major European power.
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Nazi war criminals
The following is a list of people suspected of committing war crimes on behalf of Nazi Germany or any of the Axis Powers during World War II. It does not include people from Allied countries who were suspected of treason.
(trials held in Tokyo)
Other trials were held at various locations in the Far East, by the United States, Australia, China, the United Kingdom, and other Allied countries. In all, a total of 920 Japanese military and naval personnel and civilians were executed following World War II.
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Norbert Lammert
Norbert Lammert (born 16 November 1948 in Bochum) is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). He has been the President of the Bundestag, the German parliament, since 2005.
Lammert attended gymnasium in Bochum where he studied classics. He obtained his abitur in 1967. He carried out military service in the Bundeswehr from 1967 to 1969. Following his military service he went on to the University of Bochum, which included a period abroad at the University of Oxford, where he studied political science and modern history. He went on to obtain his Ph.D. (Dr. rer. soc.) from the University of Bochum.
Having joined the CDU in 1966, he was deputy chairman of the Bochum branch of the CDU. After leading the North Rhine-Westphalia branch of the Junge Union (the youth organization of the CDU), he was elected to the Bundestag in 1980. During his tenure in the Bundestag he served on several committees.
Following the 2005 federal elections, Lammert was elected by the Bundestag on 18 October 2005 to replace Wolfgang Thierse of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) as its President. Lammert received 564 of 607 votes cast, including most of the SPD's votes. He was reelected to this post by the 17th Bundestag after the 2009 federal election.
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Nordic Bronze Age
The Nordic Bronze Age (also Northern Bronze Age) is the name given by Oscar Montelius to a period and a Bronze Age culture in Scandinavian pre-history, c. 1700-500 BC, with sites that reached as far east as Estonia. Succeeding the Late Neolithic culture, its ethnic and linguistic affinities are unknown in the absence of written sources. It is followed by the Pre-Roman Iron Age.
Even though Scandinavians joined the European Bronze Age cultures fairly late through trade, Scandinavian sites present rich and well-preserved objects made of wool, wood and imported Central European bronze and gold.
Many rock carvings depict ships, and the large stone burial monuments known as stone ships suggest that shipping played an important role. Thousands of rock carvings depict ships, most probably representing sewn plank built canoes for warfare, fishing and trade. These may have a history as far back as the neolithic period and continue in to the Pre-Roman Iron Age, as shown by the Hjortspring boat.
There are many mounds and rock carving sites from the period. Numerous artifacts of bronze and gold are found. No written language existed in the Nordic countries during the Bronze Age. The rock carvings have been dated through comparison with depicted artifacts, for example bronze axes and swords. (There are also numerous Nordic Stone Age rock carvings in the north of Scandinavia, mostly portraying elk.)
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Oliver Kahn
Oliver Rolf Kahn (German pronunciation: [ˈɔ.lɪ.vɐ ˈkʰaːn], byname Der Titan [deɐ̯ ti.ˈtʰaːn] (the Titan); born 15 June 1969) is a former German football goalkeeper. He started his career in the Karlsruher SC Junior team. He had his debut game in the professional squad in 1987. In 1994, he was transferred to Bayern Munich for the fee of 4,600,000 DM, where he played until the end of his career in 2008.
He is one of the most successful German players in recent history, having won eight German championships, six German cups, the UEFA Cup (1996), the UEFA Champions League and the Intercontinental Cup (both 2001). His individual contributions have earned him four consecutive UEFA Best European Goalkeeper awards, three IFFHS World's Best Goalkeeper awards, and two German Footballer of the Year trophies. At the 2002 FIFA World Cup, he became the first and only goalkeeper in the tournament's history to win the Golden Ball.
From 1994 to 2006, Kahn was part of the German national team, in which he played as a starter after the retirement of Andreas Köpke. In the 2002 FIFA World Cup, the team reached the Finals. While the team was several times derided for their poor performance, Kahn's prowess proved to be the deciding factor in several games up until the final, where Germany lost to Brazil 0–2 and Kahn received criticism for two blunders. Nonetheless, he was named the tournament's best player and received the Golden Ball award.
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Otto Hahn
Otto Hahn FRS (8 March 1879 – 28 July 1968) was a German chemist and Nobel laureate, a pioneer in the fields of radioactivity and radiochemistry. He is regarded as "the father of nuclear chemistry". Hahn was a courageous opposer of Jewish persecution by the Nazis and after World War II he became a passionate campaigner against the use of nuclear energy as a weapon. He served as the last President of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society (KWG) in 1946 and as the founding President of the Max Planck Society (MPG) from 1948 to 1960. Considered by many to be a model for scholarly excellence and personal integrity, he became one of the most influential citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Hahn was the youngest son of Heinrich Hahn (1845–1922), a prosperous glazier and entrepreneur ("Glasbau Hahn"), and Charlotte Hahn, née Giese (1845–1905). Together with his brothers Karl, Heiner and Julius, Otto was raised in a sheltered environment. At the age of 15, he began to take a special interest in chemistry and carried out simple experiments in the laundry room of the family home. His father wanted Otto to study architecture, as he had built or acquired several residential and business properties. But Otto persuaded him that his ambition was to become an industrial chemist.
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Otto Lilienthal
Otto Lilienthal (May 23, 1848 – August 10, 1896) was a German pioneer of human aviation who became known as the Glider King. He was the first person to make well-documented, repeated, successful gliding flights. He followed an experimental approach established earlier by Sir George Cayley. Newspapers and magazines published photographs of Lilienthal gliding, favorably influencing public and scientific opinion about the possibility of flying machines becoming practical. For his contributions to the field of aviation at such a crucial time he is often referred to as "The Father of Flight."
Lilienthal was born in Anklam, Pomerania Province, Prussia. He attended grammar school in Anklam, and also studied the flight of birds with his brother Gustav (1849–1933) . Fascinated by the idea of manned flight, Lilienthal and his brother made strap-on wings, but failed in their attempts to fly. He then attended the regional technical school in Potsdam for two years and trained at the Schwarzkopf Company before becoming a professional design engineer. He would later attend the Royal Technical Academy in Berlin.
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Otto von Bismarck
Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg (1 April 1815 – 30 July 1898), simply known as Otto von Bismarck, was a conservative German statesman who dominated European affairs from the 1860s to his dismissal in 1890. After a series of short victorious wars he unified numerous German states into a powerful German Empire under Prussian leadership, then created a "balance of power" that preserved peace in Europe from 1871 until 1914.
As Minister President of Prussia 1862–90, Bismarck provoked wars that made Prussia dominant over Austria and France, and lined up the smaller German states behind Prussia. In 1867 he also became Chancellor of the North German Confederation. Bismarck designed and created the German Empire in 1871, becoming its first Chancellor and largely controlling its affairs until he was removed by Kaiser (Emperor) William II in 1890. His diplomacy of Realpolitik and powerful rule gained him the nickname the "Iron Chancellor". As Henry Kissinger has noted, "The man of 'blood and iron' wrote prose of extraordinary directness and lucidity, comparable in distinctiveness to Churchill's use of the English language."
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Paul von Hindenburg
Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg ( listen (help·info)), known universally as Paul von Hindenburg (German: [ˈpaʊl fɔn ˈhɪndənbʊɐ̯k] ( listen); 2 October 1847 – 2 August 1934) was a Prussian-German field marshal, statesman, and politician, and served as the second President of Germany from 1925 to 1934.
Hindenburg enjoyed a long career in the Prussian Army, retiring in 1911. He was recalled at the outbreak of World War I, and first came to national attention, at the age of 66, as the victor at Tannenberg in 1914. As Germany's Chief of the General Staff from 1916, he and his deputy, Erich Ludendorff, rose in the German public's esteem until Hindenburg came to eclipse the Kaiser himself.[citation needed] Hindenburg retired again in 1919, but returned to public life one more time in 1925 to be elected as the second President of Germany.
Though 84 years old and in poor health, Hindenburg was persuaded to run for re-election in 1932, as he was considered the only candidate who could defeat Adolf Hitler. Hindenburg was re-elected in a runoff. Although he was opposing Hitler, the deteriorating political stability of the Weimar Republic let him play an important role in the Nazi Party's rise to power. He dissolved the parliament twice in 1932 and eventually appointed Hitler as Chancellor in January 1933. In February, he issued the Reichstag Fire Decree which suspended various civil liberties, and in March he signed the Enabling Act, in which the parliament gave Hitler's administration legislative powers. Hindenburg died the following year, after which Hitler declared the office of President vacant and, as "Führer und Reichskanzler", made himself head of state.
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Pre-Roman Iron Age
The Pre-Roman Iron Age of Northern Europe (5th/4th - 1st century BC) designates the earliest part of the Iron Age in Scandinavia, northern Germany, and the Netherlands north of the Rhine River. These regions feature many extensive archaeological excavation sites, which have yielded a wealth of artifacts. Objects discovered at the sites suggest that the Pre-Roman Iron Age cultures evolved without a major break out of the Nordic Bronze Age, but that there were strong influences from the Celtic Iron-Age Hallstatt culture in Central Europe. During the 1st century BC, Roman influence began to be felt even in Denmark.
Archaeologists first made the decision to divide the Iron Age into distinct pre-Roman and Roman Iron Ages after Emil Vedel unearthed a number of Iron Age artifacts in 1866 on the island of Bornholm. They did not exhibit the same permeating Roman influence seen in most other artifacts from the early centuries AD, indicating that parts of northern Europe had not yet come into contact with the Romans at the beginning of the Iron Age.
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Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss (11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and other orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks, Also sprach Zarathustra, An Alpine Symphony, and Metamorphosen. Strauss was also a prominent conductor throughout Germany and Austria.
Strauss, along with Gustav Mahler, represents the late flowering of German Romanticism after Richard Wagner, in which pioneering subtleties of orchestration are combined with an advanced harmonic style.
Strauss was born on 11 June 1864, in Munich, the son of Franz Strauss, who was the principal horn player at the Court Opera in Munich. In his youth, he received a thorough musical education from his father. He wrote his first composition at the age of six, and continued to write music almost until his death.
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Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( /ˈvɑːɡnər/; German pronunciation: [ˈʁiçaʁt ˈvaːɡnɐ]; 22 May 1813 – 13 February 1883) was a German composer, conductor, theatre director and polemicist primarily known for his operas (or "music dramas", as he later called them). Wagner's compositions, particularly those of his later period, are notable for their complex texture, rich harmonies and orchestration, and the elaborate use of leitmotifs: musical themes associated with individual characters, places, ideas or plot elements. Unlike most other opera composers, Wagner wrote both the music and libretto for every one of his stage works. Perhaps the two best-known extracts from his works are the Ride of the Valkyries from the opera Die Walküre, and the Wedding March (Bridal Chorus) from the opera Lohengrin.
Initially establishing his reputation as a composer of works such as The Flying Dutchman and Tannhäuser which were broadly in the romantic vein of Weber and Meyerbeer, Wagner transformed operatic thought through his concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk ("total work of art"). This would achieve the synthesis of all the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts and was announced in a series of essays between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realized this concept most fully in the first half of the monumental four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen. However, his thoughts on the relative importance of music and drama were to change again, and he reintroduced some traditional operatic forms into his last few stage works, including Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.
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Robert Koch
Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch ([ˈkɔx]; 11 December 1843 – 27 May 1910) was a German physician. He became famous for isolating Bacillus anthracis (1877), the Tuberculosis bacillus (1882) and Vibrio cholerae (1883) and for his development of Koch's postulates.
He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1905 for his tuberculosis findings. He is considered one of the founders of microbiology, inspiring such major figures as Paul Ehrlich and Gerhard Domagk.
Koch was born in Clausthal in the Harz Mountains, then part of Prussia, as the son of a mining official. He studied medicine under Friedrich Gustav Jakob Henle at the University of Göttingen and graduated in 1866. He then served in the Franco-Prussian War and later became district medical officer in Wollstein (Wolsztyn), Prussian Poland. Working with very limited resources, he became one of the founders of bacteriology, the other major figure being Louis Pasteur.
After Casimir Davaine demonstrated the direct transmission of the anthrax bacillus between cows, Koch studied anthrax more closely. He invented methods to purify the bacillus from blood samples and grow pure cultures. He found that, while it could not survive outside a host for long, anthrax built persisting endospores that could last a long time.
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Robert Wiene
Robert Wiene (27 April 1873 – 16 June 1938) was an important film director of the German silent cinema.
Robert Wiene was born in Breslau, as the elder son of the successful theatre actor Carl Wiene. His younger brother Conrad also became an actor, but Robert Wiene at first studied law at the University of Berlin. In 1908 he also started to act, at first in small parts on stage. His first involvement with film was in 1912, writing and directing Die Waffen der Jugend.
His most memorable feature films are the 1920 horror film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Raskolnikow (1923), an adaptation of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, both of which had a deep influence on the German cinema of that time.
After Hitler took power in Germany, Wiene left Berlin, and went first to Budapest, where he directed One Night in Venice (1934), later to London, and finally to Paris where together with Jean Cocteau he tried to produce a sound remake of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
Wiene died in Paris ten days before the end of production of a spy film, Ultimatum, after having suffered from cancer. The film was finished by Wiene's friend Robert Siodmak.
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Rudolf Diesel
Rudolf Christian Karl Diesel (German pronunciation: [ˈʁuːdɔlf ˈkʁɪstjan ˈkaʁl ˈdiːzəl]; March 18, 1858 – September 29, 1913) was a German inventor and mechanical engineer, famous for the invention of the diesel engine.
Diesel was born in Paris, France in 1858 the second of three children of Elise (née Strobel) and Theodor Diesel. His parents were Bavarian immigrants living in Paris. Theodor Diesel, a bookbinder by trade, left his home town of Augsburg, Bavaria, in 1848 . He met his wife, a daughter of a Nuremberg merchant, in Paris in 1855 and became a leather goods manufacturer there.
Rudolf Diesel spent his early childhood in France, but as a result of the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, his family (as were many other Germans) was forced to leave. They settled in London. Before the war's end in 1871, however, Diesel's mother sent 12-year-old Rudolf to Augsburg to live with his aunt and uncle, Barbara and Christoph Barnickel, to become fluent in German and to visit the Königliche Kreis-Gewerbsschule (Royal County Trade School), where his uncle taught mathematics.
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Rufus Yerxa
Rufus H. Yerxa (born 1951) is currently Deputy Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO). He has served in this position since 2002. He was the former Chief International Counsel for Monsanto Company.
As an American public servant (under both Republican and Democratic administrations), he was US Ambassador to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in Geneva; he played a key role in the Uruguay Round Negotiations. Yerxa served as a Deputy U.S. Trade Representative and U.S. Envoy to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, in Geneva. Prior to 1989, he served as the Assistant Chief Counsel of the House Ways and Means Committee and Staff Director of its Subcommittee on Trade.
From 1977 to 1981, he was the Legal Advisor to the Chairman of the International Trade Commission. An attorney and a member of the Washington State and District of Columbia Bars, Yerxa is a graduate of the University of Washington and the University of Puget Sound, and holds an LL.B. in international law from Cambridge University (UK). Prior to being named as Monsanto's international counsel, Yerxa was Monsanto's European general counsel.
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Salian
The Salian dynasty was a dynasty in the High Middle Ages of four German Kings (1024-1125), also known as the Frankish dynasty after the family's origin and role as dukes of Franconia. All of these kings were also crowned Holy Roman Emperor (1027-1125): the term 'Salic dynasty' also applies to the Holy Roman Empire as a separate term.
After the death of the last Saxon of the Ottonian Dynasty in 1024, first the elected German King and then three years later the elected position of Holy Roman Emperor both passed to the first monarch of the Salian dynasty in the person of Conrad II, the only son of Count Henry of Speyer and Adelheid of Alsace (both territories in the Franconia of the day). He was elected German King in 1024 and crowned emperor of the Holy Roman Empire on 26 March 1027.
The four Salian kings of the dynasty — Conrad II, Henry III, Henry IV, and Henry V — ruled the Holy Roman Empire from 1027 to 1125, and firmly established their monarchy as a major European power. They achieved the development of a permanent administrative system based on a class of public officials answerable to the crown.
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Saxons
The Saxons (Latin: Saxones, Old English: Seaxe, Old Saxon: Sahson, Low German: Sassen) were a confederation of Germanic tribes on the North German plain, who during the Middle Ages migrated to the British Isles and formed part of the Anglo-Saxons.
The Saxons were originally Ingvaeonic tribes, whose earliest known area of settlement is Northern Albingia, an area approximately that of modern Holstein. This area overlapped the area of the Angles, a tribe with which they were frequently closely linked. Saxons participated in the Germanic settlement of Britain during and after the fifth century. It is unknown how many migrated from the continent to Britain, though estimates for the total number of Anglo-Saxon settlers are around two hundred thousand. During the Middle ages, because of international Hanseatic trading routes and contingent migration during the Middle Ages, Saxons mixed with and had strong influences upon the languages and cultures of the North Germanic and Baltic and Finnic peoples, and also upon the Polabian Slavs and Pomeranian West Slavic people.
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Sicambri
The Sicambri (var. Sicambers, Sicambres, Sugambri or Sicambrians) were a Germanic people living on the right bank of the Rhine river, near where it passes out of Germany and enters what is now called the Netherlands at the turn of the first millennium. Originating in the Germanic-Celtic contact zone (cf. Nordwestblock), the region they lived in had become Frankish by the 3rd century, associated with the Low Franconian Salians.
The Sicambri appear in history around 55 BC, during the time of conquests of Gaul by Julius Caesar and his expansion of the Roman Empire. Caesar wrote in his Commentarii de Bello Gallico that at the confluence of the Rhine and Meuse River a battle took place in the land of the Menapii with Tencteri and Usipetes. When these two peoples were routed by him their cavalry escaped and found asylum north of the river with the Sicambri. Caesar then built a bridge across the river to punish the Sicambri.
Claudius Ptolemy located the Sicambri, together with the Bructeri Minores, at the most northern part of the Rhine and south of the Frisii who inhabit the coast north of the river. Strabo located the Sicambri next to the Menapii, “who dwell on both sides of the river Rhine near its mouth, in marshes and woods. It is opposite to these Menapii that the Sicambri are situated". This information places the Sicambri near the lower Rhine in or near what is now called the Netherlands.
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Sorbian languages
The Sorbian languages (Serbsce, Serbski) are classified under the Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. They are the native languages of the Sorbs, a Slavic minority in the Lusatia region of eastern Germany. Historically the language has also been known as Wendish or Lusatian. Their collective ISO 639-2 code is wen. It is closely related to Polish, Kashubian, Czech and Slovak.
There are two literary languages: Upper Sorbian (hornjoserbsce), spoken by about 40,000 people in Saxony, and Lower Sorbian (dolnoserbski) spoken by about 10,000 people in Brandenburg. The area where the two languages are spoken is known as Lusatia (Łužica in Upper Sorbian, Łužyca in Lower Sorbian, or Lausitz in German).
Both languages have the dual for nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verbs; very few known living Indo-European languages retain this feature as a productive aspect of the grammar (see Slovenian grammar or Lithuanian grammar for other ones).
In Germany, Upper and Lower Sorbian are officially recognized and protected as minority languages. In the home areas of the Sorbs, both languages are officially equal to German.
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Tacitus
Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus (AD 56 – AD 117) was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors. These two works span the history of the Roman Empire from the death of Augustus in AD 14 to (presumably) the death of emperor Domitian in AD 96. There are substantial lacunae in the surviving texts, including one four books long in the Annals.
Other writings by him discuss oratory (in dialogue format, see Dialogus de oratoribus), Germania (in De origine et situ Germanorum), and the life of his father-in-law Agricola, mainly focusing on his campaign in Britannia (see De vita et moribus Iulii Agricolae).
Tacitus is considered to be one of the greatest Roman historians. He lived in what has been called the Silver Age of Latin literature, and as well as the brevity and compactness of his Latin prose, he is known for his penetrating insights into the psychology of power politics.
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Theodiscus
Theodiscus, the Latinised form of a Germanic word meaning "vernacular" or "of the people", is a Medieval Latin adjective referring to the Germanic vernaculars of the Early Middle Ages. The Old High German language in Latin sources of the time is referred to as theodisca lingua. It also appears as theudiscus, theotiscus, thiudiscus. The various Latin forms are derived from West Germanic *þiudisk and its later descendants.
The use of theodisce/deutsch was first attested in 786 in a report to Pope Hadrian I. Texts from a synod held in Corbridge, England were read tam latine quam theodisce "both in Latin and in the vernacular".
It is derived from Common Germanic *þiudiskaz. The stem of this word, *þeudō, meant "people" in Common Germanic, and *-iskaz was an adjective-forming suffix, of which -ish is the Modern English form. The Old English form is þéodisc, the Old High German one diutisc (attested ca. 1090 in the Annolied). The contrasting term appears to have been walhisk ("Welsh"), which was used to refer to Celtic and Roman (Gallo-Roman), but not Slavic, populations.
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Theodor Adorno
Theodor W. Adorno (September 11, 1903 – August 6, 1969) was a German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist known for his critical theory of society.
He was a leading member of the Frankfurt School of critical theory, whose work has come to be associated with thinkers such as Ernst Bloch, Walter Benjamin, Max Horkheimer and Herbert Marcuse, for whom the work of Freud, Marx and Hegel were essential to a critique of modern society. He is widely regarded as one of the 20th century's foremost thinkers on aesthetics and philosophy, as well as one of its preeminent essayists. As a critic of both fascism and what he called the culture industry, his writings—such as Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947), Minima Moralia (1951) and Negative Dialectics (1966)—strongly influenced the European New Left.
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Theodor Fontane
Theodor Fontane (German pronunciation: [ˈtʰeːodoɐ̯ fɔnˈtaːnə]; 30 December 1819 – 20 September 1898) was a German novelist and poet, regarded by many as the most important 19th-century German-language realist writer.
Fontane was born in Neuruppin into a Huguenot family. At the age of sixteen he was apprenticed to an apothecary, his father's profession. He became an apothecary himself, and in 1839, at the age of 20, wrote his first work (Heinrichs IV. erste Liebe, now lost). His further education was in Leipzig where he came into contact with the progressives of the Vormärz. Fontane's first published work, the novella Geschwisterliebe ("Sibling Love"), appeared in the Berlin Figaro in December 1839.
His biographer Gordon A. Craig observes that this work gave few indications of his promise as a gifted writer: "Although the theme of incest, which was to occupy Fontane on later occasions, is touched upon here, the mawkishness of the tale... is equaled by the lameness of its plot and the inertness of the style in which it is told, and [the characters] Clärchen and her brother are both so colorless that no one could have guessed that their creator had a future as a writer."
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Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann (6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual. His analysis and critique of the European and German soul used modernized German and Biblical stories, as well as the ideas of Goethe, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer. His older brother was the radical writer Heinrich Mann, and three of his six children, Erika Mann, Klaus Mann and Golo Mann, also became important German writers. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Mann fled to Switzerland. When World War II broke out in 1939, he emigrated to the United States, from where he returned to Switzerland in 1952. Thomas Mann is one of the best-known exponents of the so-called Exilliteratur.
Mann was born Paul Thomas Mann in Lübeck, Germany, and was the second son of Thomas Johann Heinrich Mann (a senator and a grain merchant), and his wife Júlia da Silva Bruhns (a Brazilian of partial German ancestry who emigrated to Germany when seven years old). His mother was Roman Catholic, but Mann was baptised into his father's Lutheran faith. Mann's father died in 1891, and his trading firm was liquidated. The family subsequently moved to Munich. Mann attended the science division of a Lübeck Gymnasium (school), then spent time at the Ludwig Maximillians University of Munich and Technical University of Munich where, in preparation for a journalism career, he studied history, economics, art history and literature.
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Thuringii
The Thuringii or Toringi were a Germanic tribe which appeared late during the Völkerwanderung in the Harz Mountains of central Germania around 280, in a region which still bears their name to this day — Thuringia. They evidently filled a void left when the previous inhabitants — the Alamanni — migrated south to the region named after them, Alemannia. They may have been remnants of the Alemannic confederation, or simply another lesser tribe. Some have suggested that they were the remnants of the Hermanduri, that last part of whose name (-duri) was corrupted (-thuri) and afterwards suffixed with -ing, meaning "descendants of (the [Herman]duri)".
The Thuringii established an empire in the late 5th century. It reached its territorial peak in the first half of the 6th before it was conquered by the Franks in 531–532. Examination of Thuringian gravesites reveal cranial features which suggest the strong presence of Hunnic women or slaves, perhaps indicating that many Thuringians took Hunnic wives or Hunnic slaves following the collapse of the Hunnic Empire. There is also evidence from jewellery found in graves that the Thuringians sought marriages with Ostrogothic and Lombard women.
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Treaty of Verdun
The Treaty of Verdun (Verdun-sur-Meuse, August 843) was a treaty between the three surviving sons of Louis the Pious, the son and successor of Charlemagne, which divided the Carolingian Empire into three kingdoms. It ended the three year long Carolingian Civil War.
When Louis the Pious died in 840, his eldest son, Lothair I, claimed overlordship over his brothers' kingdoms and supported the claim of his nephew Pepin II as king of Aquitaine, a large province in western France. After his brother Louis the German and his half-brother Charles the Bald defeated his forces at the Battle of Fontenay (841) and sealed their alliance with the Oaths of Strasbourg (842), Lothair became willing to negotiate instead of continuing the warfare.
Each of the three brothers was already established in one kingdom: Lothair in Italy, Louis the German in Bavaria, and Charles the Bald in Aquitaine. In the settlement, Lothair (who had been named co-emperor in 817) retained his title as emperor and:
After the death of Lothair in 855, Upper and Lower Burgundy (Arles and Provence) passed to his third son Charles of Provence, and the remaining territory north of the Alps to his second son Lothair II, after whom the hitherto nameless territory was called Lotharingia, which name eventually evolved into the modern Lorraine. Lothair's eldest son, Louis II inherited Italy and his father's claim to the Imperial title.
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Turks in Germany
Turks in Germany (occasionally German Turks or Turkish Germans, Turkish: Almanya Türkleri or Almancılar) are people of Turkish ethnicity living in Germany who form the largest ethnic group after Germans. In 2010 the German Embassy stated that there was an estimated 3.5 million people of Turkish origin living in Germany, although other estimates suggest that there are now more than 4 million Turks and German citizens with part or full Turkish ancestry in Germany, forming about 5% of Germany's total population.
The German states have been in contact with Turks since the 17th and 18th centuries when the Ottoman Turks attempted to expand their territories beyond the north Balkan territories. Two sieges were held in Vienna in 1529 and 1683. It was the latter incident that, after the retreat of the Ottoman army, left behind many Muslim Turks who first became permanent residents in Germany. The relief of Vienna and the Ottoman retreat left behind large numbers of Ottoman soldiers and camp followers, either as stragglers or prisoners.
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Volker Schlöndorff
Volker Schlöndorff (born 31 March 1939) is a Berlin-based German filmmaker who has worked in Germany, France and the United States. He was a prominent member of the New German Cinema of the late 60s and early 70s, which also included Werner Herzog, Wim Wenders and Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
He won an Oscar as well as the Palme d'or at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival for The Tin Drum (1979), the film version of the novel by Nobel Prize-winning author Günter Grass.
Volker Schlöndorff was born in Wiesbaden, Germany to the physician Dr. Georg Schlöndorff. In 1956 his family moved to Paris, where Schlöndorff won awards at school for his work in philosophy. He graduated in political science at the Sorbonne, while at the same time studying film at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Cinematographiques, where he met Louis Malle. Malle gave him his first job as his assistant director on Zazie in the Metro, which continued with the films A Very Private Affair, The Fire Within and Viva Maria!. Schlöndorff also worked as assistant director on Alain Resnais's Last Year at Marienbad and Jean-Pierre Melville's Léon Morin, Priest. During this time he also made his first short film, Who Cares? about French people living in Frankfurt in 1960. In 1963 he collaborated with filmmaker Jean-Daniel Pollet on the 40 minute documentary Méditerranée. The film has been highly regarded since its initial release, gaining praise from Jean-Luc Godard and consistently appearing in the popular book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.
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Walter Gropius
Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (May 18, 1883 – July 5, 1969) was a German architect and founder of the Bauhaus School who, along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer, is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modern architecture.
Born in Berlin, Walter Gropius was the third child of Walter Adolph Gropius and Manon Auguste Pauline Scharnweber. Gropius married Alma Mahler (1879–1964), widow of Gustav Mahler. Walter and Alma's daughter, named Manon after Walter's mother, was born in 1916. When Manon died of polio at age 18, composer Alban Berg wrote his Violin Concerto in memory of her (it is inscribed "to the memory of an angel"). Gropius and Alma divorced in 1920. (Alma had by that time established a relationship with Franz Werfel, whom she later married.) In 1923, Gropius married Ise (Ilse) Frank (d. 1983), and they remained together until his death. They adopted Beate Gropius, also known as Ati.
Walter Gropius, like his father and his great-uncle Martin Gropius before him, became an architect. Gropius could not draw, and was dependent on collaborators and partner-interpreters throughout his career. In school he hired an assistant to complete his homework for him. In 1908 Gropius found employment with the firm of Peter Behrens, one of the first members of the utilitarian school. His fellow employees at this time included Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, and Dietrich Marcks.
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Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance (1955–1991), more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty between eight communist states of Eastern Europe in existence during the Cold War. The founding treaty was established under the initiative of the Soviet Union and signed on 14 May 1955, in Warsaw. The Warsaw Pact was the military complement to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CoMEcon), the regional economic organization for the communist states of Eastern Europe. The Warsaw Pact was a Soviet military response to the integration of West Germany into NATO in 1955, per the Paris Pacts of 1954.
In the West, the Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance is often called the Warsaw Pact military alliance; abbreviated WAPA, Warpac, and WP. Elsewhere, in the former member states, the Warsaw Treaty is known as:
The Warsaw Treaty’s organization was two-fold: the Political Consultative Committee handled political matters, and the Combined Command of Pact Armed Forces controlled the assigned multi-national forces, with headquarters in Warsaw, Poland. Furthermore, the Supreme Commander of the Unified Armed Forces of the Warsaw Treaty Organization was also a First Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR, and the head of the Warsaw Treaty Combined Staff also was a First Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR. Therefore, although ostensibly an international collective security alliance, the USSR dominated the Warsaw Treaty armed forces.
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Werner Heisenberg
Werner Karl Heisenberg (5 December 1901 – 1 February 1976) was a German theoretical physicist who made foundational contributions to quantum mechanics and is best known for asserting the uncertainty principle of quantum theory. In addition, he made important contributions to nuclear physics, quantum field theory, and particle physics.
Heisenberg, along with Max Born and Pascual Jordan, set forth the matrix formulation of quantum mechanics in 1925. Heisenberg was awarded the 1932 Nobel Prize in Physics for the creation of quantum mechanics, and its application especially to the discovery of the allotropic forms of hydrogen.
Following World War II, he was appointed director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics, which was soon thereafter renamed the Max Planck Institute for Physics. He was director of the institute until it was moved to Munich in 1958, when it was expanded and renamed the Max Planck Institute for Physics and Astrophysics.
Heisenberg was also president of the German Research Council, chairman of the Commission for Atomic Physics, chairman of the Nuclear Physics Working Group, and president of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
wn.com/Werner_Heisenberg -
Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog Stipetić (German pronunciation: [ˈʋɛɐ̯nɐ ˈhɛɐ̯tsoːk ˈstɪpɛtɪtʃ]; born 5 September 1942), known as Werner Herzog, is a German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and opera director.
He is often considered one of the greatest figures of the New German Cinema, along with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Margarethe von Trotta, Volker Schlöndorff, Werner Schröter, and Wim Wenders. His films often feature heroes with impossible dreams, people with unique talents in obscure fields, or individuals who find themselves in conflict with nature. French filmmaker François Truffaut once called Herzog "the most important film director alive."
Herzog was born Werner Herzog Stipetić to a German father Dietrich Herzog and a Croatian mother Elizabeth Stipetić in Munich. His family moved to the remote Bavarian village of Sachrang (nestled in the Chiemgau Alps), after the house next to theirs was destroyed during a bombing raid at the close of World War II. When he was 12, he and his family moved back to Munich. His father had abandoned the family early in his youth. Werner would later adopt his father's surname Herzog (German for "duke"), which he thought sounded more impressive for a filmmaker.
wn.com/Werner_Herzog -
Wernher von Braun
Wernher Magnus Maximilian, Freiherrvon Braun (March 23, 1912 – June 16, 1977) was a German-born rocket scientist, aerospace engineer, space architect, and one of the leading figures in the development of rocket technology in Nazi Germany during World War II and, subsequently, the United States.
In his 20s and early 30s, von Braun was the central figure in Germany's rocket development program, responsible for the design and realization of the V-2 combat rocket during World War II. After the war, he and some of his rocket team were taken to the United States as part of the then-secret Operation Paperclip. Von Braun worked on the United States Army intermediate range ballistic missile (IRBM) program before his group was assimilated by NASA, under which he served as director of the newly formed Marshall Space Flight Center and as the chief architect of the Saturn V launch vehicle, the superbooster that propelled the Apollo spacecraft to the Moon. According to one NASA source, he is "without doubt, the greatest rocket scientist in history". His crowning achievement was to lead the development of the Saturn V booster rocket that helped land the first men on the Moon in July 1969. In 1975 he received the National Medal of Science.
wn.com/Wernher_von_Braun -
Wilhelm Röntgen
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (German pronunciation: [ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈʁœntɡən]; 27 March 1845 – 10 February 1923) was a German physicist, who, on 8 November 1895, produced and detected electromagnetic radiation in a wavelength range today known as X-rays or Röntgen rays, an achievement that earned him the first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901.
Röntgen was born in a traditional Catholic family in Lennep, Germany as the only child of a merchant and manufacturer of cloth. His mother was Charlotte Constanze Frowein of Amsterdam. In March 1848, the family moved to Apeldoorn and Wilhelm was raised in the Netherlands. He received his early education at the boarding school, Institute of Martinus Herman van Doorn, in Apeldoorn. From 1861 to 1863, he attended the ambachtsschool in Utrecht. He was expelled for refusing to reveal the identity of a classmate guilty of drawing an unflattering portrait of one of the school's teachers. Not only was he expelled, he subsequently found that he could not gain admittance into any other Dutch or German gymnasium.
wn.com/Wilhelm_Röntgen -
Willy Brandt
Willy Brandt (born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm; German pronunciation: [ˈvɪli ˈbʁant]; 18 December 1913 – 8 October 1992) was a German politician, Mayor of West Berlin 1957–1966, Chancellor of West Germany 1969–1974, and leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) 1964–1987.
Brandt's most important legacy was Ostpolitik, a policy aimed at improving relations with East Germany, Poland, and the Soviet Union. This policy caused considerable controversy in West Germany, but won Brandt the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971.
In 1974, Brandt resigned as Chancellor after Günter Guillaume, one of his closest aides, was exposed as an agent of the Stasi, the East German secret service.
Willy Brandt was born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm in the Free City of Lübeck (German Empire) to Martha Frahm, an unwed mother who worked as a cashier for a department store. His father was an accountant from Hamburg named John Möller, whom Brandt never met. As his mother worked six days a week, he was mainly brought up by his mother's stepfather Ludwig Frahm and his second wife Dora.
wn.com/Willy_Brandt -
Wim Wenders
Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders (born 14 August 1945) is a German film director, playwright, author, photographer and producer. Since 1996, Wenders has been the president of the European Film Academy in Berlin.
Wenders was born in Düsseldorf into a traditional Catholic family. His father, Heinrich Wenders, was a surgeon. Use of the Dutch name, "Wim", a shortened version of the baptismal name "Wilhelm/Willem", reflected his mother's Dutch provenance, but the Dutch version was rejected by the civil registration authorities in 1945 as "unGerman". He graduated from high school in Oberhausen in the Ruhr area. He then studied medicine (1963–64) and philosophy (1964–65) in Freiburg and Düsseldorf. However, he dropped out of university studies and moved to Paris in October 1966 to become a painter. Wenders failed his entry test at France's national film school IDHEC (now La Fémis), and instead became an engraver in the studio of Johnny Friedlander, an American artist, in Montparnasse. During this time, Wenders became fascinated with cinema, and saw up to five movies a day at the local movie theater.
wn.com/Wim_Wenders -
World War I
World War I (WWI), which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939 (World War II), and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918. It involved all the world's great powers, which were assembled in two opposing alliances: the Allies (based on the Triple Entente of the United Kingdom, France and Russia) and the Central Powers (originally centred around the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy; but, as Austria–Hungary had taken the offensive against the agreement, Italy did not enter into the war). These alliances both reorganised (Italy fought for the Allies), and expanded as more nations entered the war. Ultimately more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history. More than 9 million combatants were killed, largely because of enormous increases in lethality of weapons, thanks to new technology, without corresponding improvements in protection or mobility. It was the sixth-deadliest conflict in world history, subsequently paving the way for various political changes such as revolutions in the nations involved.
wn.com/World_War_I
- Die Prinzen
- Boehse Onkelz
- Prager Handgriff
- Nationalhymnen
- Slime
- No Remorse
- Massiv
- Atari Teenage Riot
karaoke
Deutsch, deutsch, deutsch, deutsch, deutsch, deutsch.
Natürlich hat ein Deutscher „Wetten Dass“ erfunden,
vielen Dank für die schönen Stunden.
Wir sind die freundlichsten Kunden auf dieser Welt,
wir sind bescheiden, wir haben Geld,
die Allerbesten in jedem Sport;
die Steuern hier - sind Weltrekord.
Bereisen Sie Deutschland
und bleiben Sie hier,
auf diese Art von Besuchern - warten wir.
Es kann jeder hier wohnen,
dem es gefällt,
wir sind das freundlichste Volk,
auf dieser Welt...
Deutsch, deutsch, deutsch, deutsch.
Nur eine Kleinigkeit ist hier verkehrt,
und zwar das Schumacher keinen Mercedes fährt.
(Mercedes fährt...)
[Refrain:]
Das alles ist Deutschland (ohh),
das alles sind wir (ohh),
das gibt es nirgendwo anders,
nur hier - nur hier.
Das alles ist Deutschland (ohh),
das sind alles wir,
wir leben und wir sterben hier.
Deutsch, deutsch, deutsch, deutsch, deutsch, deutsch, deutsch, deutsch.
Es bilden sich viele was auf Deutschland ein,
und mancher findet es geil - ein Arschloch zu sein.
Es gibt manchen der sich gern’ über Kanaken beschwert
und zum Ficken jedes Jahr nach Thailand fährt.
Wir lieben unsere Autos mehr als unsere Frauen,
denn deutschen Autos können wir vertrauen.
Gott hat die Erde nur einmal geküsst,
genau an dieser Stelle wo jetzt Deutschland ist.
Wir sind überall die besten – natürlich auch im Bett,
und zu Hunden und Katzen,
besonders nett.
[Refrain]
Wir sind besonders gut im auf die Fresse hauen,
auch im Feuerregen - kann man uns vertrauen.
Wir stehen auf Ordnung und Sauberkeit,
wir sind jederzeit für ’nen Krieg bereit.
Schönen Gruß an die Welt seht es endlich ein,
wir können stolz auf Deutschland
(Deutschland, Deutschland...)
Schwein, Schwein, Schwein, Schwein, Schwein, Schwein.
[Refrain 2x]
(Weidner)
Deutscher Stahl
Kalt und hart
Ein tiefer Schnitt
Durch Haut - so zart
Ein Schnitt wie durch Butter
Durchtrennte Venen
Das Ringen nach Luft
Ein letztes Flehen
(Bridge I+II))
Ich hör' dich sagen, du kannst nicht mehr
Du wünschst dir deinen Tod so sehr
Ich bin nicht gesegnet, ich bin nicht gnädig
Ich hab' einen Job - und der wird erledigt
(II)
Der Preis des Lebens ist der Tod
Deshalb hab' ich dich geholt
Du lebst für mich
Und jetzt nehm' ich dich
In meine Arme, in meine Arme
(Chor)
Ich mache keinen Unterschied
Zwischen Jung und Alt
Ob du arm oder reich bist
Läßt mich kalt
Ich heiß' euch alle willkommen
Ich liebe jeden
Alles, was ich will
Ist euer Leben
Eine silberne Kugel
Frißt sich ein Loch in dein Herz
Viel zu schnell
Du spürst nicht mal den Schmerz
Deinen Tod vor den Augen
Bahnt sie sich ihren Weg
Unaufhaltsam
Unentwegt
(Bridge I+II)
(Chor)
(Bridge II)
(Chor /2x)
Die Schlacht der Schlachten hat begonnen
die Schmach ist nun zurückgekommen
mit breitem Grinsen rasiertem Haupt
Häuser liegen im schwarzen Rauch
Zufluchtsorte brennen im Nu
Bürger klatschen Beifall dazu
zum Gruße heben sie ihre Hand
am Ende scheint nun dieses Land
Die braune Seuche hat uns befallen
man hört es durch die Städte hallen
Deutschland wir sind wieder wer
man muß sich schämen um so mehr
Das Ausland scheint immens erschreckt
der alte Geist wohl neu erweckt
Was ist bloß los in diesem Land ?
Wo bleibt konkreter Widerstand ?
die Schwachen müssen wieder leiden
verprügeln töten oder vertreiben
die Politik kann nichts dafür
Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit
Für das deutsche Vaterland!
Danach laßt uns alle streben,
Brüderlich mit Herz und Hand!
Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit
Sind des Glückes Unterpfand:
Blüh im Glanze dieses Glückes,
Blühe, deutsches Vaterland!
Wo Faschisten und Multis das Land regieren
Wo Leben und Umwelt keinen interessieren
Wo alle Menschen ihr Ich verlieren
Da kann eigentlich nur noch eins passieren
4x Deutschland muà sterben, damit wir leben können!
Schwarz ist der Himmel, Rot ist die Erde
Gold sind die Hände der Bonzenschweine
Doch der Bundesadler stürzt bald ab
Denn Deutschland, wir tragen dich zu Grab
Wo Faschisten und Multis das Land regieren
Wo Leben und Umwelt keinen interessieren
Wo alle Menschen ih Ich verlieren
Da kann eigentlich nur noch eins passieren
4x Deutschland muà sterben, damit wir leben können!
4x Deutschland muà sterben, damit wir leben können!
Wo Panzer und Raketen den Frieden "sichern"
AKWs und Computer das Leben "verbessern"
Bewaffnete Roboter überall
Doch Deutschland, wir bringen dich zu Fall
4x Deutschland muà sterben, damit wir leben können!
4x Deutschland verrecke, damit wir leben können!
They fought a war 60 years ago. For us their heroes died in the snow.
Deutschland Deutschland fatherland. Deutschland fatherland. Deutschland fatherland. Deutschland fatherland.
They fought total war in the east. They fought and died against the red beast.
Deutschland Deutschland fatherland. Deutschland fatherland. Deutschland fatherland. Deutschland fatherland.
They fought the gold of jewish liars. And like phoenix they're rising from the fire.
Deutschland Deutschland fatherland. Deutschland fatherland. Deutschland fatherland. Deutschland fatherland.
They wanted peace but Churchill was a liar. For jewish gold he set the world on fire.
Deutschland Deutschland fatherland. Deutschland fatherland. Deutschland fatherland. Deutschland fatherland.
(Part 1):
Wir sind alle gleich, wir sind alle vereint
Wir leben hier zusammen sind von Sorgen befreit
Hier hungert keiner hier wird ehrlich jedes Bisschen geteilt
Hier ist die Hautfarbe egal hier zählt dein Herz und deine Freundlichkeit
Ehrlich gesagt musst du überhaupt kein Deutscher sein
Guck wie leben hier hier wo nur die Sonne scheint
Die deutsche Tugend, keiner konnt uns bisher stoppen
Und wenn Deutschland spielt sind wir voll verschwitzt und hoffen
Denn das ist unser Land hier ist keiner dem andern fremd
Hier herrscht Gleichberechtigung hier wählst du den der dir gefällt
Es ist ne Frau die das ganze Land hier präsentiert
Jede Frau wird hier geschätzt, jede Frau hat Rechte hier
Hier siehst du Mädchen mit nem Kopftuch in die Schule gehen
Hier ist es schön weil sich n Moslem mit n Christ versteht
Egal ob Moslem, Deutscher, Türke wird sind alle gleich
In einem Land wo man sich ehrenvoll die Hände reicht
Refrain (2x):
Hier hält Einigkeit, jeder hat sein Recht hier
Freiheit! Das ist das Land dass uns zum Glück führt
Deutschland! Wir sind alle vereint
Egal ob arm oder reich, schwarz oder weiss
(Part 2):
Ich bin hier geboren, bin in Deutschland aufgewachsen
Hab n deutschen Pass ich wurde in der gründen Pfalz erwachsen
Hier triffst du dich als Kind zum spielen auf dem Spielplatz
Hier bekommst du Fördergelder wenn du einen Traum hast
Jeder wird hier aufgeklärt, jeder wird hier unterstützt
Jeder wird hier gut beraten, jeder findet hier sein Glück
Na klar gibts Sachen wo so manchen Menschen runterdrückt
Hier und dort gibts arme Leute mit viel Schulden im Genick
Die nicht viel besitzen doch man fühlt dass sie zufrieden sind
Genau hier spürst du den frischen Wind
In diesem Lied beschreib ich euch das positive Leben
Denn das negative Lästern tut schon in den Ohren weh
1989 sahen wir den Mauerfall
Freudentränen fliessen, diese Bilder sah man überall
Die Umarmungen, diese Erleichterung
Jeder trug die Fahne voller Stolz und hatte nur n Wunsch
Refrain (2x):
Hier hält Einigkeit, jeder hat sein Recht hier
Freiheit! Das ist das Land dass uns zum Glück führt
Deutschland! Wir sind alle vereint
Egal ob arm oder reich, schwarz oder weiss
(Part 3):
Unser Land liegt im Herzen Europas
Hier sagst du grüss Gott zu nem freundlichen Opa
Wo sonst gibt es Tauben wie am Kudamm?
Hier kannste Lufthansa fliegen oder I.C.E. fahren
Hier siehste Tannenbäume nicht nur im Dezember
Früher noch im Trabbi heute siehst du sie im Benz fahren
Egal ob Russe, Türke, Deutscher wir sind alle gleich
In einem Land wo man sich ehrenvoll die Hände reicht
Refrain (2x):
Hier hält Einigkeit, jeder hat sein Recht hier
Freiheit! Das ist das Land dass uns zum Glück führt
Deutschland! Wir sind alle vereint
Deutschland has gotta die! (eins, zwei, drei, vier!)
Wake up! wake up! get off your knees...
Where will the west strike next?
The war is still between east and west...
Money talks! money! you're so bored and sick!
Lets burn germany!
Building up economy of dead bodies! that's what they want!
We react very strongly to tranquilizers you know...
I need a diversion for a silent escape! harder! faster!
You know what they're after
You haven't suffered the same as I have!
Senseless neverending terror!
We make em nervous... we make em nervous! (x3)
Deutschland has gotta die!
Wake up! wake up! get off your spleen!
What will the west strike next?
The war is still between east and west...
Money talks! money knows!
You're so bored and sick!
Let's burn deutschland!
The bloody wankers tried to pull us down...
Blow'em up! blow'em up!
The bloody wankers try to pull us down but
We're gonna smash them in! (x4)
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Die Prinzen - Deutschland (English Sub)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:34
- Updated: 02 Dec 2012
Die Prinzen - Deutschland (Germany) Die Prinzen are a German Pop Rock A-capella band from Leipzig The Song was released on the 40th anniversary of the building of the Berlin Wall in 2001 The song is a Sarcastic/satirical song about Germany. Die Prinzen use their favorite word ("Schwein") at the very end to replace "sein" ("to be"). Indirect the song means Germany is nice but not all is good Info: Kanake is a derogatory word used in Germany for immigrants and foreigners. Originally used to refer to Italian, Greek, and Spanish immigrants, it now is more commonly used against immigrants of Turkish descent. Much like the terms nigger or queer in English Chart Position in Germany: #15 Released: 2001
http://wn.com/Die_Prinzen_Deutschland_English_Sub
Die Prinzen - Deutschland (Germany) Die Prinzen are a German Pop Rock A-capella band from Leipzig The Song was released on the 40th anniversary of the building of the Berlin Wall in 2001 The song is a Sarcastic/satirical song about Germany. Die Prinzen use their favorite word ("Schwein") at the very end to replace "sein" ("to be"). Indirect the song means Germany is nice but not all is good Info: Kanake is a derogatory word used in Germany for immigrants and foreigners. Originally used to refer to Italian, Greek, and Spanish immigrants, it now is more commonly used against immigrants of Turkish descent. Much like the terms nigger or queer in English Chart Position in Germany: #15 Released: 2001
No Remorse - Deutschland
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:54
- Updated: 01 Dec 2012
They fought and died against the red beast.
http://wn.com/No_Remorse_Deutschland
They fought and died against the red beast.
- published: 04 Jul 2007
- views: 338455
- author: sgaothaich
Die Prinzen - "Deutschland"
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:41
- Updated: 02 Dec 2012
Very popular song "Deutschland" by German music group "Die Prinzen"
http://wn.com/Die_Prinzen_Deutschland
Very popular song "Deutschland" by German music group "Die Prinzen"
- published: 10 May 2010
- views: 67227
- author: Brandon Cullison
Willkommen in Deutschland!
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 10:13
- Updated: 02 Dec 2012
Video about some of the most breathtakingly beautiful places in Germany.
http://wn.com/Willkommen_in_Deutschland!
Video about some of the most breathtakingly beautiful places in Germany.
- published: 17 Jun 2007
- views: 203905
- author: Ferschumi
Deutschland über alles - German Anthem
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:28
- Updated: 02 Dec 2012
A Stewardess in the TV Show "Pan Am" sings a verse of the German National Anthem.
http://wn.com/Deutschland_über_alles_German_Anthem
A Stewardess in the TV Show "Pan Am" sings a verse of the German National Anthem.
- published: 19 Oct 2011
- views: 424347
- author: JoshuaH688
Deutschland - Argentinien Elfmeterschiessen (30.06.2006)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 8:36
- Updated: 02 Dec 2012
Fussball WM Deutschland - Argentinien Elmeterschiessen [30.06.2006 ARD]
http://wn.com/Deutschland_Argentinien_Elfmeterschiessen_30062006
Fussball WM Deutschland - Argentinien Elmeterschiessen [30.06.2006 ARD]
- published: 20 Dec 2006
- views: 1860016
- author: Afro87
Joseph Haydn - Deutschland Uber Alles
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:34
- Updated: 02 Dec 2012
The National Anthem of Germany was composed by Joseph Haydn . It is a part of Haydn's Kaiser Quartet.
http://wn.com/Joseph_Haydn_Deutschland_Uber_Alles
The National Anthem of Germany was composed by Joseph Haydn . It is a part of Haydn's Kaiser Quartet.
- published: 09 Nov 2007
- views: 1665280
- author: Spiciu
Deutschland Über Alles.
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:36
- Updated: 02 Dec 2012
I always had german friends since my childhood. All of them were hard working good people. Their parents arrived to Mexico after the war. A war they were forced to fight, and a tremendous tragedy to all of them. But if you ask me, for sure I don't know why germans always have been welcomed to Mexico. As I always felt welcomed in germany. No comments for french people.
http://wn.com/Deutschland_Über_Alles
I always had german friends since my childhood. All of them were hard working good people. Their parents arrived to Mexico after the war. A war they were forced to fight, and a tremendous tragedy to all of them. But if you ask me, for sure I don't know why germans always have been welcomed to Mexico. As I always felt welcomed in germany. No comments for french people.
- published: 11 Apr 2008
- views: 380369
- author: dillerto
Das alles ist Deutschland- Die Prinzen
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:43
- Updated: 01 Dec 2012
xD nimms mit Humor und lach mit !!
http://wn.com/Das_alles_ist_Deutschland_Die_Prinzen
xD nimms mit Humor und lach mit !!
- published: 01 May 2010
- views: 693046
- author: TheMuke95
[APH][MAD]Deutschland
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:56
- Updated: 28 Nov 2012
song: Deutschland by Die Prinzen MAD made by: siriuss, shammy1000(illus.), 海司92859 English translation from SkadiPirate, Thank you!~
http://wn.com/_APH_MAD_Deutschland
song: Deutschland by Die Prinzen MAD made by: siriuss, shammy1000(illus.), 海司92859 English translation from SkadiPirate, Thank you!~
- published: 24 Aug 2009
- views: 57252
- author: Alcc404
Das Ist Deutschland
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:59
- Updated: 02 Dec 2012
Deutschland Video von meinem Clanleader :) war ein schulprojekt VERY NICE
http://wn.com/Das_Ist_Deutschland
Deutschland Video von meinem Clanleader :) war ein schulprojekt VERY NICE
- published: 18 Dec 2006
- views: 413731
- author: diedusche
Deutschland vs. Argentinien 1:3 Fußball Testspiel 15.08.2012 (Germany vs. Argentina)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:54
- Updated: 01 Dec 2012
Germany vs. Argentina national football friendly match 15.08.2012 Alemania vs Argentina de fútbol nacional de partido amistoso 08/15/2012 Alemanha vs Argentina nacional de futebol amistoso 2012/08/15 Deutschland verlor das Testspiel gegen Argentinien 1:3 Mesi verschoss ein Elfmeter gegen ter Stegen. Khedira schoss ein Eigentor.
http://wn.com/Deutschland_vs_Argentinien_13_Fußball_Testspiel_15082012_Germany_vs_Argentina
Germany vs. Argentina national football friendly match 15.08.2012 Alemania vs Argentina de fútbol nacional de partido amistoso 08/15/2012 Alemanha vs Argentina nacional de futebol amistoso 2012/08/15 Deutschland verlor das Testspiel gegen Argentinien 1:3 Mesi verschoss ein Elfmeter gegen ter Stegen. Khedira schoss ein Eigentor.
- published: 15 Aug 2012
- views: 176309
- author: MeineSchwesterGunter
WRC Adac rally deutschland 2012 - Martin Prokop's car on fire
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:55
- Updated: 30 Nov 2012
WRC Adac rally deutschland, Martin Prokop's car on fire by SpRALLY
http://wn.com/WRC_Adac_rally_deutschland_2012_Martin_Prokop's_car_on_fire
WRC Adac rally deutschland, Martin Prokop's car on fire by SpRALLY
- published: 24 Aug 2012
- views: 200322
- author: samdu20
Schweiz - Deutschland 5:3 Alle Tore & Highlights !!! 26.05.2012
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 7:22
- Updated: 01 Dec 2012
Schweiz - Deutschland 5:3 Alle Tore & Highlights !!! 26.05.2012 switzerland vs germany 5-3 highlights schönsten Momente all goals international friendly game 26-6-2012 Schweiz - Deutschland 5-3 Alle Tore überprüfen tor 1-0 derdiyok 2-0 tor derdiyok 2-1 hummels 3-1 4-3 reus derdiyok full highlights all goals alle tore Schweiz vs Deutschland (26.5.12) all Goals & Highlights - Switzerland vs Germany 26/5/12 4-3 3-2 64` Schurrle 4-3 tor reus 5-3 mehmedi 4-2 67` Lichsteriner Mats Hummels goal FIRST GOAL EREN DERDIYOK HAT-TRICK hat trick hat-trick Switzerland Germany 5-3 All Goals Full Highlights 26/05/2012 Szwajcaria Niemcy 5:3 SWITZERLAND GERMANY
http://wn.com/Schweiz_Deutschland_53_Alle_Tore_Highlights_!!!_26052012
Schweiz - Deutschland 5:3 Alle Tore & Highlights !!! 26.05.2012 switzerland vs germany 5-3 highlights schönsten Momente all goals international friendly game 26-6-2012 Schweiz - Deutschland 5-3 Alle Tore überprüfen tor 1-0 derdiyok 2-0 tor derdiyok 2-1 hummels 3-1 4-3 reus derdiyok full highlights all goals alle tore Schweiz vs Deutschland (26.5.12) all Goals & Highlights - Switzerland vs Germany 26/5/12 4-3 3-2 64` Schurrle 4-3 tor reus 5-3 mehmedi 4-2 67` Lichsteriner Mats Hummels goal FIRST GOAL EREN DERDIYOK HAT-TRICK hat trick hat-trick Switzerland Germany 5-3 All Goals Full Highlights 26/05/2012 Szwajcaria Niemcy 5:3 SWITZERLAND GERMANY
- published: 26 May 2012
- views: 63730
- author: crazyfootballvideos
Deutschland - Brasilien 3:2 Friendly match 2011 HD
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 8:24
- Updated: 25 Nov 2012
Honors for this video (20) 13/08/2011 #67 - Most Discussed (This Month) - Morocco #4 - Most Discussed (This Month) - Sports - Morocco #2 - Most Discussed (Today) - Morocco #1 - Most Discussed (Today) - Sports - Morocco #10 - Most Discussed (This Week) - Morocco #1 - Most Discussed (This Week) - Sports - Morocco #10 - Top Favorited (This Month) - Sports - Morocco #12 - Top Favorited (Today) - Morocco #2 - Top Favorited (Today) - Sports - Morocco #32 - Top Favorited (This Week) - Morocco #2 - Top Favorited (This Week) - Sports - Morocco #17 - Top Rated (This Month) - Sports - Morocco #5 - Top Rated (Today) - Morocco #4 - Top Rated (Today) - Sports - Morocco #19 - Top Rated (This Week) - Morocco #4 - Top Rated (This Week) - Sports - Morocco #36 - Most Viewed (Today) - Germany #4 - Most Viewed (Today) - Sports - Germany #126 - Most Viewed (Today) - Sports #196 - Most Viewed (Today) - Sports - South Africa
http://wn.com/Deutschland_Brasilien_32_Friendly_match_2011_HD
Honors for this video (20) 13/08/2011 #67 - Most Discussed (This Month) - Morocco #4 - Most Discussed (This Month) - Sports - Morocco #2 - Most Discussed (Today) - Morocco #1 - Most Discussed (Today) - Sports - Morocco #10 - Most Discussed (This Week) - Morocco #1 - Most Discussed (This Week) - Sports - Morocco #10 - Top Favorited (This Month) - Sports - Morocco #12 - Top Favorited (Today) - Morocco #2 - Top Favorited (Today) - Sports - Morocco #32 - Top Favorited (This Week) - Morocco #2 - Top Favorited (This Week) - Sports - Morocco #17 - Top Rated (This Month) - Sports - Morocco #5 - Top Rated (Today) - Morocco #4 - Top Rated (Today) - Sports - Morocco #19 - Top Rated (This Week) - Morocco #4 - Top Rated (This Week) - Sports - Morocco #36 - Most Viewed (Today) - Germany #4 - Most Viewed (Today) - Sports - Germany #126 - Most Viewed (Today) - Sports #196 - Most Viewed (Today) - Sports - South Africa
- published: 10 Aug 2011
- views: 122011
- author: maroccoclub
Endkampf um Deutschland
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:00
- Updated: 02 Dec 2012
STRICTLY UNPOLITICAL VIDEO.please DO NOT post any abusive / insulting , ultra nationalistic , silly , religious ,communistic nor neo nazi comments , many thanks pals !!! Copyright Disclaimer: Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.
http://wn.com/Endkampf_um_Deutschland
STRICTLY UNPOLITICAL VIDEO.please DO NOT post any abusive / insulting , ultra nationalistic , silly , religious ,communistic nor neo nazi comments , many thanks pals !!! Copyright Disclaimer: Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.
- published: 01 Jun 2011
- views: 632935
- author: HCTerrorist
Deutschland | Germany | Alemania | Tyskland | Duitsland | Germania | Niemcy | Njemačka 01/04
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:58
- Updated: 01 Dec 2012
Mehr Infos | More information germanmusic1.blogspot.com
http://wn.com/Deutschland_|_Germany_|_Alemania_|_Tyskland_|_Duitsland_|_Germania_|_Niemcy_|_Njemačka_01_04
Mehr Infos | More information germanmusic1.blogspot.com
- published: 08 May 2009
- views: 129905
- author: GermanMusic1
Reiseland Deutschland - Vielfalt im Herzen Europas
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 10:05
- Updated: 30 Nov 2012
http://wn.com/Reiseland_Deutschland_Vielfalt_im_Herzen_Europas
- published: 18 Nov 2010
- views: 15842
- author: magazinedeutschland
Beer celebrations in Munchen, Deutschland - No comment
- Order:
- Duration: 2:00
- Updated: 30 Nov 2012
www.euronews.com Thousands of people crowded for the Beer celebrations in Munchen, Deutschland. No comment | Euronews: The most striking images from around the world without commentary. Find us on: Youtube bit.ly Facebook www.facebook.com Twitter twitter.com
http://wn.com/Beer_celebrations_in_Munchen,_Deutschland_No_comment
www.euronews.com Thousands of people crowded for the Beer celebrations in Munchen, Deutschland. No comment | Euronews: The most striking images from around the world without commentary. Find us on: Youtube bit.ly Facebook www.facebook.com Twitter twitter.com
- published: 06 Oct 2008
- views: 772574
- author: nocommenttv
Das Alles ist Deutschland
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:42
- Updated: 26 Nov 2012
"Die Prinzen - Das Alles ist Deutschland" English translation by about.com: German, German, German... Of course a German invented "Wetten, dass"* Many thanks for the enjoyable hours We're the friendliest customers in this world We're modest - we have money The very best in any sport The taxes here set a world record Visit Germany and stay here It's this kind of visitor we wait for Anyone who likes it can live here We're the friendliest people in this world German, German... Just one little thing is out of whack And that is, Schumacher** doesn't drive a Mercedes Refrain: All that is Germany - all that is us You won't find that anywhere else - only here only here All that is Germany - all that is us We live and die here German, German... Many people are arrogant about Germany And some think it's cool to be an a--hole There are some who like to complain about Kanaken*** And travel to Thailand every year to f--- We love our cars more than our women Because we can trust German cars God kissed the earth just once Right on the spot where Germany is now We're the best everywhere - naturally also in bed And we're especially nice to dogs and cats All that is Germany... We're really good at busting someone in the chops We can also be relied on for starting fires We like order and cleanliness We're always ready for a war Friendly greetings to the world, understand We can be proud of Germany... SWINE! Swine, swine... All that is Germany... * "Wetten, dass" ("Wanna bet?") is a popular ...
http://wn.com/Das_Alles_ist_Deutschland
"Die Prinzen - Das Alles ist Deutschland" English translation by about.com: German, German, German... Of course a German invented "Wetten, dass"* Many thanks for the enjoyable hours We're the friendliest customers in this world We're modest - we have money The very best in any sport The taxes here set a world record Visit Germany and stay here It's this kind of visitor we wait for Anyone who likes it can live here We're the friendliest people in this world German, German... Just one little thing is out of whack And that is, Schumacher** doesn't drive a Mercedes Refrain: All that is Germany - all that is us You won't find that anywhere else - only here only here All that is Germany - all that is us We live and die here German, German... Many people are arrogant about Germany And some think it's cool to be an a--hole There are some who like to complain about Kanaken*** And travel to Thailand every year to f--- We love our cars more than our women Because we can trust German cars God kissed the earth just once Right on the spot where Germany is now We're the best everywhere - naturally also in bed And we're especially nice to dogs and cats All that is Germany... We're really good at busting someone in the chops We can also be relied on for starting fires We like order and cleanliness We're always ready for a war Friendly greetings to the world, understand We can be proud of Germany... SWINE! Swine, swine... All that is Germany... * "Wetten, dass" ("Wanna bet?") is a popular ...
- published: 31 Jul 2006
- views: 266839
- author: GTAzoccer
Student Life: How much does it cost to live in Germany?
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 6:20
- Updated: 29 Nov 2012
Max explains step by step what amount of money you will need for things like accomodation, freetime activities or food. This video is part of the project "Student Life" which was realised by the DAAD in cooperation with the university of applied sciences in Mittweida. www.study-in.de
http://wn.com/Student_Life_How_much_does_it_cost_to_live_in_Germany?
Max explains step by step what amount of money you will need for things like accomodation, freetime activities or food. This video is part of the project "Student Life" which was realised by the DAAD in cooperation with the university of applied sciences in Mittweida. www.study-in.de
- published: 04 Nov 2009
- views: 49555
- author: DAADBonn
Deutschland - Israel (2-0) Alle Tore & Highlights - Germany 2x0 Israel 31/05/2012 Özil
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 7:47
- Updated: 27 Nov 2012
HQ - Alle Tore und Full Match Highlights (ARD) Deutschland vs Israel [2:0] Freundschaftsspiel 2011/12 - 31/05/2012 Mesut Özil All Goals & Highlights Germany 2-0 Israel - Friendly 31.05.2012 Mario Gomez Todos los goles ampia sintesi tutti i gol alle tore all goals full highlights Deutschland - Israel (2-0) Alle Tore & Highlights - Germany 2x0 Israel 31/05/2012 Allemagne vs Israël 2-0 tous les buts 31.05.2012 Matchs amicals 2012 mai Alemania Vs Israel 2x0 Resumen todos los goles,Amistosos 2012 Mayo 31.05.2012 Tore / Goals /Goles 1 : 0 Mario Gómez 40. / Rechtsschuss (Thomas Müller) 2 : 0 André Schürrle 82. / Rechtsschuss Alle Tore und Highlights Deutschland vs Israel [2x0] 31-05-2012 All Goals & Highlights Germany 2 Israel 0 - Friendly 31.05.2012 Deutschland vs Israel [2x0] Alle Tore & Highlights 31/05/2012 Sportschau Germany vs Israel [2-0] All Goals & Highlights - 31.05.2012
http://wn.com/Deutschland_Israel_2-0_Alle_Tore_Highlights_Germany_2x0_Israel_31_05_2012_Özil
HQ - Alle Tore und Full Match Highlights (ARD) Deutschland vs Israel [2:0] Freundschaftsspiel 2011/12 - 31/05/2012 Mesut Özil All Goals & Highlights Germany 2-0 Israel - Friendly 31.05.2012 Mario Gomez Todos los goles ampia sintesi tutti i gol alle tore all goals full highlights Deutschland - Israel (2-0) Alle Tore & Highlights - Germany 2x0 Israel 31/05/2012 Allemagne vs Israël 2-0 tous les buts 31.05.2012 Matchs amicals 2012 mai Alemania Vs Israel 2x0 Resumen todos los goles,Amistosos 2012 Mayo 31.05.2012 Tore / Goals /Goles 1 : 0 Mario Gómez 40. / Rechtsschuss (Thomas Müller) 2 : 0 André Schürrle 82. / Rechtsschuss Alle Tore und Highlights Deutschland vs Israel [2x0] 31-05-2012 All Goals & Highlights Germany 2 Israel 0 - Friendly 31.05.2012 Deutschland vs Israel [2x0] Alle Tore & Highlights 31/05/2012 Sportschau Germany vs Israel [2-0] All Goals & Highlights - 31.05.2012
- published: 31 May 2012
- views: 73460
- author: SoccerXXL
This. Is. DEUTSCHLAND.
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:22
- Updated: 26 Sep 2012
Blasphemy!
http://wn.com/This_Is_DEUTSCHLAND
Blasphemy!
- published: 12 Mar 2008
- views: 9581
- author: Whit3Iv0ry
photo: AP / Lefteris Pitarakis
30 Nov 2012
- For historians, it represents a treasure trove of boundless rewards and an opportunity to revisit some of the most enduring myths about Britain's colonial past. But for some of those still living with the physical and psychological scars, the release of thousands of previously secret government-held documents offers fresh hope of finally gaining a measure of justice for their suffering under British rule ... 1096 Source.. Al Jazeera ... ;">....(size: 22.4Kb)
photo: USAF / Senior Airman Patrice Clarke
02 Dec 2012
There have been "multiple explosions" near an airfield at a US base in eastern Afghanistan, Nato has said. Afghan intelligence officials told the BBC seven suicide attackers targeted the base in Jalalabad, and witnesses said that gunfire was heard ... Counter claims ... There were no Nato casualties in the attack, officials said ... ....(size: 1.7Kb)
photo: US NARA
30 Nov 2012
Article by WN.com Correspondent Dallas Darling. Staring at the quote on the small granite monument which read. "They said to one another, behold here comes the dreamer...Let us slay him...And we shall see what will become of his dreams," I tried to understand that fateful moment when a shot shattered heaven and earth ... Martin Luther King, Jr. Straining my ears, I tried to hear Rev. Abernathy cry out, "Oh my God, Martin's been shot!" ... Dr....(size: 6.5Kb)
photo: AP / Thomas Hartwell
02 Dec 2012
Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi has called a December 15 referendum on a constitution drafted by the Islamist-led assembly. The decree follows mass protests against the country's new constitutional charter. Morsi called the referendum on Saturday after Egypt's assembly handed its final draft of the planned new constitution to the president for final approval. It is now expected to go to a popular referendum within two weeks ... DW.DE ... ....(size: 3.8Kb)
photo: UN / David Manyua
01 Dec 2012
The conflict in Syria has now reached "new and appalling heights of brutality and violence", according to the UN secretary-general, while the world body's envoy to Syria has said the country is in danger of becoming "a failed state" ... The fighting has killed about 40,000 people, making it the bloodiest of Arab uprisings that have ousted entrenched leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen since early last year ... 957 Source.. Agencies ... ....(size: 21.8Kb)
noodls
02 Dec 2012
GRUBER AND STECHER WIN TEAM SPRINT IN NORDIC COMBINED. 02.12.2012. Bernhard Gruber and Mario Stecher (both AUT, Fischer skis and boots) celebrated victory in team sprint in nordic combined in Kuusamo ahead of Norway II. Austria always in the lead ... HS142/2x7,5km Teamsprint, Kuusamo (FIN). 1 ... Deutschland GER 00.35.27,80 8. Deutschland II GER 00.35.36,10 9 ... MORE ABOUT....(size: 8.8Kb)
Crunch
02 Dec 2012
Tech. gdgt Slashdot MAKE Technology Review Ars Technica TechMeme Phone Scoop. Design ... News ... Lifestyle. Lifehacker HuffPost Women Stylelist Automotive Gadling. Environmental ... About Us Subscribe via RSS Like Engadget on Facebook @engadget on Twitter Español ç¹é«ä¸æ ç®ä½ä¸æ æ¥æ¬ç Deutschland ... ....(size: 2.3Kb)
Crunch
01 Dec 2012
Tech. gdgt Slashdot MAKE Technology Review Ars Technica TechMeme Phone Scoop. Design ... News ... Lifestyle. Lifehacker HuffPost Women Stylelist Automotive Gadling ... About Us Subscribe via RSS Like Engadget on Facebook @engadget on Twitter Español ç¹é«ä¸æ ç®ä½ä¸æ æ¥æ¬ç Deutschland ... ....(size: 2.4Kb)
Crunch
01 Dec 2012
Tech. gdgt Slashdot MAKE Technology Review Ars Technica TechMeme Phone Scoop. Design ... News ... Lifestyle. Lifehacker HuffPost Women Stylelist Automotive Gadling ... About Us Subscribe via RSS Like Engadget on Facebook @engadget on Twitter Español ç¹é«ä¸æ ç®ä½ä¸æ æ¥æ¬ç Deutschland ... ....(size: 2.3Kb)
Crunch
01 Dec 2012
Tech. gdgt Slashdot MAKE Technology Review Ars Technica TechMeme Phone Scoop. Design ... News ... Lifestyle. Lifehacker HuffPost Women Stylelist Automotive Gadling. Environmental ... About Us Subscribe via RSS Like Engadget on Facebook @engadget on Twitter Español ç¹é«ä¸æ ç®ä½ä¸æ æ¥æ¬ç Deutschland ... ....(size: 2.4Kb)
noodls
30 Nov 2012
ALSTOM Deutschland AG appoints two new board members. On the 1st of December 2012 Dr. Wolfgang Voss and Adolf Roesch join the board of directors of the Alstom Deutschland AG ... Alf-Henryk Wulf, CEO of the Alstom Deutschland AG since the 1st of April, Thomas Kresser, CFO and Dr. Martin Lange, responsible for the transport business, complete the board of directors of the ALSTOM Deutschland AG ... Press Contacts ... distributed by....(size: 2.8Kb)
noodls
30 Nov 2012
PRESS RELEASE. Publisher. Bundesrepublik Deutschland - Finanzagentur GmbH. 60439 Frankfurt am Main, Lurgiallee 5. Contact. Corporate Communications. Telephone. Facsimile.. E-Mail. Internet.. +49 69 25 616 13 65 / 1143 ... No ... At ... Federal Treasury financing paper ... Bundesrepublik Deutschland, vertreten durch das Bundesministerium der Finanzen ... This noodl was issued by Bundesrepublik Deutschland - Finanzagentur GmbH and was initially posted at ....(size: 2.6Kb)
noodls
30 Nov 2012
The number of days open for sale was 26 in October 2012 and 25 in October 2011. ... >>> Brief methodological description ... Michael Wollgramm,. tel ... This noodl was issued by Destatis - Statistisches Bundesamt Deutschland and was initially posted at www.destatis.de....(size: 1.8Kb)
noodls
30 Nov 2012
>>> Brief methodological description. For further information please call.. Michael Wollgramm,. tel. +49 611 75 2423,. contact form ... This noodl was issued by Destatis - Statistisches Bundesamt Deutschland and was initially posted at www.destatis.de....(size: 1.7Kb)
Reuters
30 Nov 2012
... the Financial Times Deutschland newspaper reported, without citing sources....(size: 0.4Kb)
Crunch
30 Nov 2012
Tech. gdgt Slashdot MAKE Technology Review Ars Technica TechMeme Phone Scoop. Design. FFFFOUND! Core77 Popcorn Shower MoCo Loco Design*Sponge The Sartorialist. News ... Lifestyle ... Environmental ... Entertainment ... About Us Subscribe via RSS Like Engadget on Facebook @engadget on Twitter Español 繁體中文 简体中文 日本版 Deutschland. Joystiq ... Tuaw ... ....(size: 2.4Kb)
Crunch
30 Nov 2012
Tech. gdgt Slashdot MAKE Technology Review Ars Technica TechMeme Phone Scoop. Design. FFFFOUND! Core77 Popcorn Shower MoCo Loco Design*Sponge The Sartorialist. News ... Lifestyle ... Environmental ... Entertainment ... About Us Subscribe via RSS Like Engadget on Facebook @engadget on Twitter Español 繁體中文 简体中文 日本版 Deutschland. Joystiq. Analyst ... Tuaw ... ....(size: 2.4Kb)
Crunch
30 Nov 2012
Tech. gdgt Slashdot MAKE Technology Review Ars Technica TechMeme Phone Scoop. Design. FFFFOUND! Core77 Popcorn Shower MoCo Loco Design*Sponge The Sartorialist. News ... Lifestyle ... Environmental ... Entertainment ... About Us Subscribe via RSS Like Engadget on Facebook @engadget on Twitter Español 繁體中文 简体中文 日本版 Deutschland. Joystiq ... Tuaw ... ....(size: 2.4Kb)
This article is about the country. For other uses of terms redirecting here, see Germany (disambiguation) and Deutschland (disambiguation).
| Federal Republic of Germany
Bundesrepublik Deutschland
|
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
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Anthem:
 The third stanza of Das Lied der Deutschen The Song of the Germans |
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![Location of Germany (dark green)– in Europe (green & dark grey)– in the European Union (green) — [Legend]](http://web.archive.org./web/20121202220551/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EU-Germany.svg) Location of Germany (dark green)
– in Europe (green & dark grey) |
||||||
| Capital (and largest city) |
Berlin 52°31′N 13°23′E / 52.517°N 13.383°E / 52.517; 13.383 |
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| Official language(s) | German[1] | |||||
| Ethnic groups | Germans 91.5%, Turks 2.4%, other 6.1% (made up largely of Greek, Italian, Polish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Spanish)[1] | |||||
| Demonym | German | |||||
| Government | Federal parliamentary constitutional republic | |||||
| - | President | Joachim Gauck | ||||
| - | Chancellor | Angela Merkel | ||||
| - | President of the Bundestag | Norbert Lammert | ||||
| - | President of the Bundesrat | Horst Seehofer | ||||
| Legislature | ||||||
| - | Upper house | Bundesrat | ||||
| - | Lower house | Bundestag | ||||
| Formation | ||||||
| - | Holy Roman Empire | 2 February 962 | ||||
| - | Unification | 18 January 1871 | ||||
| - | Federal Republic | 23 May 1949 | ||||
| - | Reunification | 3 October 1990 | ||||
| Area | ||||||
| - | Total | 357,021 km2 (63rd) 137,847 sq mi |
||||
| - | Water (%) | 2.416 | ||||
| Population | ||||||
| - | 2010 estimate | 81,799,600[2] (16th) | ||||
| - | Density | 229/km2 (55th) 593/sq mi |
||||
| GDP (PPP) | 2011 estimate | |||||
| - | Total | $3.099 trillion[3] (5th) | ||||
| - | Per capita | $37,896[3] (18th) | ||||
| GDP (nominal) | 2011 estimate | |||||
| - | Total | $3.577 trillion[3] (4th) | ||||
| - | Per capita | $43,741[3] | ||||
| Gini (2006) | 27 (low) | |||||
| HDI (2011) |  0.905[4] (very high) (9th) |
|||||
| Currency | Euro (€)[2](2002 – present) Swiss franc (de facto in Büsingen) ( EUR, CHF) |
|||||
| Time zone | CET (UTC+1) | |||||
| - | Summer (DST) | CEST (UTC+2) | ||||
| Drives on the | right | |||||
| ISO 3166 code | DE | |||||
| Internet TLD | .de [3] | |||||
| Calling code | 49 | |||||
| 1 | ^ Danish, Low German, Sorbian, Romany and Frisian are officially recognised by the ECRML. | |||||
| 2 | ^ Before 2002: Deutsche Mark (DEM). | |||||
| 3 | ^ Also .eu, shared with European Union member states. | |||||
Germany (i/ˈdʒɜrməni/), officially the Federal Republic of Germany (German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland, pronounced [ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant] ( listen)),[5] is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate. With 81.8 million inhabitants, it is the most populous member state and the largest economy in the European Union. It is one of the major political powers of the European continent and a technological leader in many fields.
A region named Germania, inhabited by several Germanic peoples, was documented before AD 100. During the Migration Period, the Germanic tribes expanded southward, and established successor kingdoms throughout much of Europe. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire.[6] During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation while southern and western parts remained dominated by Roman Catholic denominations, with the two factions clashing in the Thirty Years' War, marking the beginning of the Catholic–Protestant divide that has characterized German society ever since.[7] Occupied during the Napoleonic Wars, the rise of Pan-Germanism inside the German Confederation resulted in the unification of most of the German states into the German Empire in 1871 which was Prussian dominated. After the German Revolution of 1918–1919 and the subsequent military surrender in World War I, the Empire was replaced by the Weimar Republic in 1918, and partitioned in the Treaty of Versailles. Amidst the Great Depression, the Third Reich was proclaimed in 1933. The latter period was marked by Fascism and World War II. After 1945, Germany was divided by allied occupation, and evolved into two states, East Germany and West Germany. In 1990 Germany was reunified.
Germany was a founding member of the European Community in 1957, which became the EU in 1993. It is part of the Schengen Area and since 1999 a member of the eurozone. Germany is a Great Power and member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, the OECD and the Council of Europe, and took a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council for the 2011–2012 term.
It has the world's fourth largest economy by nominal GDP and the fifth largest by purchasing power parity. It is the second largest exporter and third largest importer of goods. The country has developed a very high standard of living and a comprehensive system of social security. Germany has been the home of many influential scientists and inventors, and is known for its cultural and political history.
Contents |
Etymology[link]
Main article: Names of Germany
The English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine.[8] The German term Deutschland (originally diutisciu land, "the German lands") is derived from deutsch, descended from Old High German diutisc "popular" (i. e., belonging to the diot or diota "people"; originally used to distinguish the language of the common people from Latin and its Romance descendants). This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz "popular" (see also the Latinised form Theodiscus), derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- "people".[9]
History[link]
Main article: History of Germany
Germanic tribes and Frankish Empire[link]
Main articles: Germania and Migration Period
The Germanic tribes are thought to date from the Nordic Bronze Age or the Pre-Roman Iron Age. From southern Scandinavia and north Germany, they expanded south, east and west from the 1st century BC, coming into contact with the Celtic tribes of Gaul as well as Iranian, Baltic, and Slavic tribes in Eastern Europe.[10] Under Augustus, the Roman General Publius Quinctilius Varus began to invade Germania (an area extending roughly from the Rhine to the Ural Mountains). In AD 9, three Roman legions led by Varus were defeated by the Cheruscan leader Arminius. By AD 100, when Tacitus wrote Germania, Germanic tribes had settled along the Rhine and the Danube (the Limes Germanicus), occupying most of the area of modern Germany; Austria, southern Bavaria and the western Rhineland, however, were Roman provinces.[11]
In the 3rd century a number of large West Germanic tribes emerged: Alemanni, Franks, Chatti, Saxons, Frisii, Sicambri, and Thuringii. Around 260, the Germanic peoples broke into Roman-controlled lands.[12] After the invasion of the Huns in 375, and with the decline of Rome from 395, Germanic tribes moved further south-west. Simultaneously several large tribes formed in what is now Germany and displaced the smaller Germanic tribes. Large areas (known since the Merovingian period as Austrasia) were occupied by the Franks, and Northern Germany was ruled by the Saxons and Slavs.[11]
Holy Roman Empire[link]
Main article: Holy Roman Empire
On 25 December 800, Charlemagne founded the Carolingian Empire, which was divided in 843.[13] The Holy Roman Empire resulted from the eastern portion of this division. Its territory stretched from the Eider River in the north to the Mediterranean coast in the south.[13] Under the reign of the Ottonian emperors (919–1024), several major duchies were consolidated, and the German king was crowned Holy Roman Emperor of these regions in 962. The Holy Roman Empire absorbed northern Italy and Burgundy under the reign of the Salian emperors (1024–1125), although the emperors lost power through the Investiture Controversy.
Under the Hohenstaufen emperors (1138–1254), the German princes increased their influence further south and east into territories inhabited by Slavs, preceding German settlement in these areas and further east (Ostsiedlung). Northern German towns grew prosperous as members of the Hanseatic League.[14] Starting with the Great Famine in 1315, then the Black Death of 1348–50, the population of Germany plummeted.[15] The edict of the Golden Bull in 1356 provided the basic constitution of the empire and codified the election of the emperor by seven prince-electors who ruled some of the most powerful principalities and archbishoprics.[16]
Martin Luther publicised The Ninety-Five Theses in 1517, challenging the Roman Catholic Church and initiating the Protestant Reformation. A separate Lutheran church became the official religion in many German states after 1530. Religious conflict led to the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), which devastated German lands.[17] The population of the German states was reduced by about 30%.[18] The Peace of Westphalia (1648) ended religious warfare among the German states, but the empire was de facto divided into numerous independent principalities. From 1740 onwards, dualism between the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy and the Kingdom of Prussia dominated German history. In 1806, the Imperium was overrun and dissolved as a result of the Napoleonic Wars.[19]
German Confederation and Empire[link]
Following the fall of Napoleon, the Congress of Vienna convened in 1814 and founded the German Confederation (Deutscher Bund), a loose league of 39 sovereign states. Disagreement with restoration politics partly led to the rise of liberal movements, followed by new measures of repression by Austrian statesman Metternich. The Zollverein, a tariff union, furthered economic unity in the German states.[20] National and liberal ideals of the French Revolution gained increasing support among many, especially young, Germans. In the light of a series of revolutionary movements in Europe, which established a republic in France, intellectuals and commoners started the Revolutions of 1848 in the German states. King Frederick William IV of Prussia was offered the title of Emperor, but with a loss of power; he rejected the crown and the proposed constitution, leading to a temporary setback for the movement.[21]
Conflict between King William I of Prussia and the increasingly liberal parliament erupted over military reforms in 1862, and the king appointed Otto von Bismarck the new Minister President of Prussia. Bismarck successfully waged war on Denmark in 1864. Prussian victory in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 enabled him to create the North German Confederation (Norddeutscher Bund) and to exclude Austria, formerly the leading German state, from the federation's affairs. After the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, the German Empire was proclaimed 1871 in Versailles, uniting all scattered parts of Germany except Austria (Kleindeutschland, or "Lesser Germany"). With almost two thirds of its territory and population, Prussia was the dominating constituent of the new state; the Hohenzollern King of Prussia ruled as its concurrent Emperor, and Berlin became its capital.[21] In the Gründerzeit period following the unification of Germany, Bismarck's foreign policy as Chancellor of Germany under Emperor William I secured Germany's position as a great nation by forging alliances, isolating France by diplomatic means, and avoiding war. Under Wilhelm II, however, Germany, like other European powers, took an imperialistic course leading to friction with neighbouring countries. As a result of the Berlin Conference in 1884 Germany claimed several colonies including German East Africa, German South-West Africa, Togo, and Cameroon.[22] Most alliances in which Germany had previously been involved were not renewed, and new alliances excluded the country.[23]
The assassination of Austria's crown prince on 28 June 1914 triggered World War I. Germany, as part of the Central Powers, suffered defeat against the Allies in one of the bloodiest conflicts of all time. An estimated two million German soldiers died in World War I.[24] The German Revolution broke out in November 1918, and Emperor Wilhelm II and all German ruling princes abdicated. An armistice ended the war on 11 November, and Germany was forced to sign the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919. The treaty was perceived in Germany as a humiliating continuation of the war, and is often cited as an influence in the rise of Nazism.[25]
Weimar Republic and Nazi Regime[link]
Main articles: Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany
1: office formally vacant from August 1934; Hitler styled himself "Führer und Reichskanzler"[26]
At the beginning of the German Revolution in November 1918, Germany was declared a republic. However, the struggle for power continued, with radical-left communists seizing power in Bavaria. The revolution came to an end on 11 August 1919, when the democratic Weimar Constitution was signed by President Friedrich Ebert.[27] Suffering from the Great Depression of 1929, the harsh peace conditions dictated by the Treaty of Versailles, and a long succession of unstable governments, Germans increasingly lacked identification with the government. This was exacerbated by a widespread right-wing Dolchstoßlegende, or stab-in-the-back legend, which argued that Germany had lost World War I because of those who wanted to overthrow the government. The Weimar government was accused of betraying Germany by signing the Versailles Treaty. By 1932, the German Communist Party and the Nazi Party controlled the majority of parliament, fuelled by discontent with the Weimar government. After a series of unsuccessful cabinets, President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933.[28] On 27 February 1933 the Reichstag building went up in flames, and a consequent emergency decree abrogated basic citizens' rights. An enabling act passed in parliament gave Hitler unrestricted legislative power. Only the Social Democratic Party voted against it, while Communist MPs had already been imprisoned.[29][30] Using his powers to crush any actual or potential resistance, Hitler established a centralised totalitarian state within months. Industry was revitalised with a focus on military rearmament.[31]
In 1935, Germany reacquired control of the Saar and in 1936 military control of the Rhineland, both of which had been lost in the Treaty of Versailles.[32] In 1938, Austria was annexed, and in 1939, Czechoslovakia was brought under German control. The invasion of Poland was prepared through the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact and Operation Himmler. On 1 September 1939 the German Wehrmacht launched a blitzkrieg on Poland, which was swiftly occupied by Germany and by the Soviet Red Army. The UK and France declared war on Germany, marking the beginning of World War II.[33] As the war progressed, Germany and its allies quickly gained control of most of continental Europe and North Africa, though plans to force the United Kingdom to an armistice or surrender failed. On 22 June 1941, Germany broke the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact and invaded the Soviet Union. Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor led Germany to declare war on the United States. The Battle of Stalingrad forced the German army to retreat on the Eastern front.[33] In September 1943, Germany's ally Italy surrendered, and German troops were forced to defend an additional front in Italy. D-Day opened a Western front, as Allied forces advanced towards German territory. On 8 May 1945, the German armed forces surrendered after the Red Army occupied Berlin.[34]
In what later became known as The Holocaust, the Third Reich regime had enacted policies directly subjugating many dissidents and minorities. Millions of people were murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust, including approximately six million Jews, and a sizeable number of Romani people, Jehovah's Witnesses, Poles and other Slavs, Soviet POWs, people with mental and/or physical disabilities, homosexuals, and members of the political and religious opposition.[35] World War II was responsible for more than 40 million dead in Europe.[36] The Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals were held after World War II.[37] The war casualties for Germany are estimated at 5.3 million German soldiers[38] millions of German civilians;[39][40][41][42][43] and losing the war resulted in large territorial losses; the expulsion of about 15 million Germans from the eastern areas of Germany and other countries; mass rape of German women;[44] and the destruction of multiple major cities.
East and West Germany[link]
Main article: History of Germany (1945–1990)
After the surrender of Germany, the remaining German territory and Berlin were partitioned by the Allies into four military occupation zones. The western sectors, controlled by France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, were merged on 23 May 1949 to form the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland); on 7 October 1949, the Soviet Zone became the German Democratic Republic (Deutsche Demokratische Republik, or DDR). They were informally known as "West Germany" and "East Germany". East Germany selected East Berlin as its capital, while West Germany chose Bonn as a provisional capital, to emphasise its stance that the two-state solution was an artificial and temporary status quo.[45]
West Germany, established as a federal parliamentary republic with a "social market economy", was allied with the United States, the UK and France. The country enjoyed prolonged economic growth beginning in the early 1950s (Wirtschaftswunder). West Germany joined NATO in 1955 and was a founding member of the European Economic Community in 1957. East Germany was an Eastern bloc state under political and military control by the USSR via the latter's occupation forces and the Warsaw Pact. Though East Germany claimed to be a democracy, political power was exercised solely by leading members (Politbüro) of the communist-controlled Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), supported by the Stasi, an immense secret service,[46] and a variety of sub-organisations controlling every aspect of society. A Soviet-style command economy was set up; the GDR later became a Comecon state.[47] While East German propaganda was based on the benefits of the GDR's social programmes and the alleged constant threat of a West German invasion, many of her citizens looked to the West for freedom and prosperity.[48] The Berlin Wall, built in 1961 to stop East Germans from escaping to West Germany, became a symbol of the Cold War.[21]
Tensions between East and West Germany were reduced in the early 1970s by Chancellor Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik. In summer 1989, Hungary decided to dismantle the Iron Curtain and open the borders, causing the emigration of thousands of East Germans to West Germany via Hungary. This had devastating effects on the GDR, where regular mass demonstrations received increasing support. The East German authorities unexpectedly eased the border restrictions, allowing East German citizens to travel to the West; originally intended to help retain East Germany as a state, the opening of the border actually led to an acceleration of the Wende reform process. This culminated in the Two Plus Four Treaty a year later on 12 September 1990, under which the four occupying powers renounced their rights under the Instrument of Surrender, and Germany regained full sovereignty. This permitted German reunification on 3 October 1990, with the accession of the five re-established states of the former GDR (new states or "neue Länder").[21]
Berlin Republic and the EU[link]
Main article: History of Germany since 1990
Based on the Berlin/Bonn Act, adopted on 10 March 1994, Berlin once again became the capital of the reunified Germany, while Bonn obtained the unique status of a Bundesstadt (federal city) retaining some federal ministries.[49] The relocation of the government was completed in 1999.[50] Since reunification, Germany has taken a more active role in the European Union and NATO. Germany sent a peacekeeping force to secure stability in the Balkans and sent a force of German troops to Afghanistan as part of a NATO effort to provide security in that country after the ousting of the Taliban.[51] These deployments were controversial since, after the war, Germany was bound by domestic law only to deploy troops for defence roles.[52] In 2005, Angela Merkel became the first female Chancellor of Germany as the leader of a grand coalition.[21]
Geography[link]
Main article: Geography of Germany
Germany is in Western and Central Europe, bordering Denmark in the north, Poland and the Czech Republic in the east, Austria and Switzerland in the south, France and Luxembourg in the south-west, and Belgium and the Netherlands in the north-west. It lies mostly between latitudes 47° and 55° N (the tip of Sylt is just north of 55°), and longitudes 5° and 16° E. The territory covers 357,021 km2 (137,847 sq mi), consisting of 349,223 km2 (134,836 sq mi) of land and 7,798 km2 (3,011 sq mi) of water. It is the seventh largest country by area in Europe and the 62nd largest in the world.[1]
Elevation ranges from the mountains of the Alps (highest point: the Zugspitze at 2,962 metres / 9,718 feet) in the south to the shores of the North Sea (Nordsee) in the north-west and the Baltic Sea (Ostsee) in the north-east. The forested uplands of central Germany and the lowlands of northern Germany (lowest point: Wilstermarsch at 3.54 metres / 11.6 feet below sea level) are traversed by such major rivers as the Rhine, Danube and Elbe. Glaciers are found in the Alpine region, but are experiencing deglaciation. Significant natural resources are iron ore, coal, potash, timber, lignite, uranium, copper, natural gas, salt, nickel, arable land and water.[1]
Climate[link]
Most of Germany has a temperate seasonal climate in which humid westerly winds predominate. The climate is moderated by the North Atlantic Drift, the northern extension of the Gulf Stream. This warmer water affects the areas bordering the North Sea; consequently in the north-west and the north the climate is oceanic. Rainfall occurs year-round, especially in the summer. Winters are mild and summers tend to be cool, though temperatures can exceed 30 °C (86 °F).[53]
The east has a more continental climate; winters can be very cold and summers very warm, and long dry periods are frequent. Central and southern Germany are transition regions which vary from moderately oceanic to continental. In addition to the maritime and continental climates that predominate over most of the country, the Alpine regions in the extreme south and, to a lesser degree, some areas of the Central German Uplands have a mountain climate, characterised by lower temperatures and greater precipitation.[53]
Biodiversity[link]
The territory of Germany can be subdivided into two ecoregions: European-Mediterranean montane mixed forests and Northeast-Atlantic shelf marine.[54] As of 2008[update] the majority of Germany is covered by either arable land (34%) or forest and woodland (30.1%); only 13.4% of the area consists of permanent pastures, 11.8% is covered by settlements and streets.[55]
Plants and animals are those generally common to middle Europe. Beeches, oaks, and other deciduous trees constitute one third of the forests; conifers are increasing as a result of reforestation. Spruce and fir trees predominate in the upper mountains, while pine and larch are found in sandy soil. There are many species of ferns, flowers, fungi, and mosses. Wild animals include deer, wild boar, mouflon, fox, badger, hare, and small numbers of beavers.[56]
The national parks in Germany include the Wadden Sea National Parks, the Jasmund National Park, the Vorpommern Lagoon Area National Park, the Müritz National Park, the Lower Oder Valley National Park, the Harz National Park, the Saxon Switzerland National Park and the Bavarian Forest National Park. More than 400 registered zoos and animal parks operate in Germany, which is believed to be the largest number in any country.[57] The Zoologische Garten Berlin is the oldest zoo in Germany and presents the most comprehensive collection of species in the world.[58]
Politics[link]
Main article: Politics of Germany
See also: Judiciary of Germany and Law enforcement in Germany
Germany is a federal, parliamentary, representative democratic republic. The German political system operates under a framework laid out in the 1949 constitutional document known as the Grundgesetz (Basic Law). Amendments generally require a two-thirds majority of both chambers of parliament; the fundamental principles of the constitution, as expressed in the articles guaranteeing human dignity, the separation of powers, the federal structure, and the rule of law are valid in perpetuity.[59]
The president is the head of state and invested primarily with representative responsibilities and powers. He is elected by the Bundesversammlung (federal convention), an institution consisting of the members of the Bundestag and an equal number of state delegates. The second-highest official in the German order of precedence is the Bundestagspräsident (President of the Bundestag), who is elected by the Bundestag and responsible for overseeing the daily sessions of the body. The third-highest official and the head of government is the Chancellor, who is appointed by the Bundespräsident after being elected by the Bundestag.[21]
The chancellor, currently Angela Merkel, is the head of government and exercises executive power, similar to the role of a Prime Minister in other parliamentary democracies. Federal legislative power is vested in the parliament consisting of the Bundestag (Federal Diet) and Bundesrat (Federal Council), which together form the legislative body. The Bundestag is elected through direct elections, by proportional representation (mixed-member).[1] The members of the Bundesrat represent the governments of the sixteen federated states and are members of the state cabinets.[21]
Since 1949, the party system has been dominated by the Christian Democratic Union and the Social Democratic Party of Germany with all chancellors hitherto being member of either party. However, the smaller liberal Free Democratic Party (which has had members in the Bundestag since 1949) and the Alliance '90/The Greens (which has controlled seats in parliament since 1983) have also played important roles.[60]
Germany has a civil law system based on Roman law with some references to Germanic law. The Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court) is the German Supreme Court responsible for constitutional matters, with power of judicial review.[21][61] Germany's supreme court system, called Oberste Gerichtshöfe des Bundes, is specialised: for civil and criminal cases, the highest court of appeal is the inquisitorial Federal Court of Justice, and for other affairs the courts are the Federal Labour Court, the Federal Social Court, the Federal Finance Court and the Federal Administrative Court. The Völkerstrafgesetzbuch regulates the consequences of crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes, and gives German courts universal jurisdiction in some circumstances.[62] Criminal and private laws are codified on the national level in the Strafgesetzbuch and the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch respectively. The German penal system is aimed towards rehabilitation of the criminal and the protection of the general public.[63] Except for petty crimes, which are tried before a single professional judge, and serious political crimes, all charges are tried before mixed tribunals on which lay judges (Schöffen) sit side by side with professional judges.[64][65]
Constituent states[link]
Main article: States of Germany
Germany comprises sixteen states that are collectively referred to as Länder.[66] Each state has its own state constitution[67] and is largely autonomous in regard to its internal organisation. Due to differences in size and population the subdivision of these states varies, especially between city states (Stadtstaaten) and states with larger territories (Flächenländer). For regional administrative purposes five states, namely Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia and Saxony, consist of a total of 22 Government Districts (Regierungsbezirke). As of 2009[update] Germany is divided into 403 districts (Kreise) on municipal level, these consist of 301 rural districts and 102 urban districts.[68]
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Foreign relations[link]
Main article: Foreign relations of Germany
Germany has a network of 229 diplomatic missions abroad and maintains relations with more than 190 countries.[69] As of 2011[update] it is the largest contributor to the budget of the European Union (providing 20%)[70] and the third largest contributor to the UN (providing 8%).[71] Germany is a member of NATO, the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the G8, the G20, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It has played a leading role in the European Union since its inception and has maintained a strong alliance with France since the end of World War II. Germany seeks to advance the creation of a more unified European political, defence, and security apparatus.[72][73]
The development policy of the Federal Republic of Germany is an independent area of German foreign policy. It is formulated by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and carried out by the implementing organisations. The German government sees development policy as a joint responsibility of the international community.[74] It is the world's third biggest aid donor after the United States and France.[75][76]
During the Cold War, Germany's partition by the Iron Curtain made it a symbol of East-West tensions and a political battleground in Europe. However, Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik was a key factor in the détente of the 1970s.[77] In 1999, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's government defined a new basis for German foreign policy by taking part in the NATO decisions surrounding the Kosovo War and by sending German troops into combat for the first time since World War II.[78] The governments of Germany and the United States are close political allies.[21] The 1948 Marshall Plan and strong cultural ties have crafted a strong bond between the two countries, although Schröder's vocal opposition to the Iraq War suggested the end of Atlanticism and a relative cooling of German-American relations.[79] The two countries are also economically interdependent: 8.8% of German exports are U.S.-bound and 6.6% of German imports originate from the U.S.[80]
Military[link]
Main article: Bundeswehr
Germany's military, the Bundeswehr, is organized in Heer (Army), Marine (Navy), Luftwaffe (Air Force), Bundeswehr Joint Medical Service and Streitkräftebasis (Joint Support Service) branches. As of 2011[update], military spending was an estimated 1.3% of the country's GDP, that is low in a ranking of all countries; in absolute terms, German military expenditure is the ninth-highest in the world.[81] In peacetime, the Bundeswehr is commanded by the Minister of Defence. If Germany went to war, which according to the constitution is allowed only for defensive purposes, the Chancellor would become commander in chief of the Bundeswehr.[82]
As of March 2012[update] the Bundeswehr employs 183,000 professional soldiers and 17,000 volunteers.[83] The German government plans to reduce the number of soldiers to 170,000 professionals and up to 15,000 short-time volunteers (voluntary military service).[84] Reservists are available to the Armed Forces and participate in defence exercises and deployments abroad, a new reserve concept of their future strength and functions was announced 2011.[84] As of April 2011[update], the German military had about 6,900 troops stationed in foreign countries as part of international peacekeeping forces, including about 4,900 Bundeswehr troops in the NATO-led ISAF force in Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, 1,150 German soldiers in Kosovo, and 300 troops with UNIFIL in Lebanon.[85]
Until 2011, military service was compulsory for men at age 18, and conscripts served six-month tours of duty; conscientious objectors could instead opt for an equal length of Zivildienst (civilian service), or a six-year commitment to (voluntary) emergency services like a fire department or the Red Cross. On 1 July 2011 conscription was officially suspended and replaced with a voluntary service.[86][87] Since 2001 women may serve in all functions of service without restriction, but they are not subject to conscription. There are presently some 17,500 women on active duty and a number of female reservists.[88]
Economy[link]
Main article: Economy of Germany
Germany has a social market economy with a highly qualified labour force, a large capital stock, a low level of corruption,[90] and a high level of innovation.[91] It has the largest national economy in Europe, the fourth largest by nominal GDP in the world,[92] and the fifth largest by PPP[92] in 2009. The service sector contributes approximately 71% of the total GDP, industry 28%, and agriculture 0.9%.[1] The official average national unemployment rate in March 2012 was 7.2%.[93] However, the official average national unemployment rate also includes people with a part-time job that are looking for a full-time job.[94] The unofficial average national unemployment rate in 2011 was 5.7%.[1]
Germany is an advocate of closer European economic and political integration. Its commercial policies are increasingly determined by agreements among European Union (EU) members and by EU legislation. Germany introduced the common European currency, the euro, on 1 January 2002.[95][96] Its monetary policy is set by the European Central Bank. Two decades after German reunification, standards of living and per capita incomes remain significantly higher in the states of the former West Germany than in the former East.[97] The modernisation and integration of the eastern German economy is a long-term process scheduled to last until the year 2019, with annual transfers from west to east amounting to roughly $80 billion.[98] In January 2009 the German government approved a €50 billion economic stimulus plan to protect several sectors from a downturn and a subsequent rise in unemployment rates.[99]
Of the world's 500 largest stock-market-listed companies measured by revenue in 2010, the Fortune Global 500, 37 are headquartered in Germany. 30 Germany-based companies are included in the DAX, the German stock market index. Well-known global brands are Mercedes-Benz, BMW, SAP, Siemens, Volkswagen, Adidas, Audi, Allianz, Porsche, Bayer, Bosch, and Nivea.[100] Germany is recognised for its specialised small and medium enterprises. Around 1,000 of these companies are global market leaders in their segment and are labelled hidden champions.[101]
The list includes the largest companies by turnover in 2009. Unranked are the largest bank and the largest insurance company in 2007:
| Rank[102] | Name | Headquarters | Revenue (Mil. €) |
Profit (Mil. €) |
Employees (World) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Volkswagen AG | Wolfsburg | 108,897 | 4,120 | 329,305 |
| 2 | Daimler AG | Stuttgart | 99,399 | 3,985 | 272,382 |
| 3 | Siemens AG | Munich/Berlin | 72,488 | 3,806 | 398,200 |
| 4 | E.ON AG | Düsseldorf | 68,731 | 7,204 | 87,815 |
| 5 | Metro AG | Düsseldorf | 64,337 | 825 | 242,378 |
| 6 | Deutsche Post AG | Bonn | 63,512 | 1,389 | 475,100 |
| 7 | Deutsche Telekom AG | Bonn | 62,516 | 569 | 241,426 |
| 8 | BASF SE | Ludwigshafen | 57,951 | 4,065 | 95,175 |
| 9 | BMW AG | Munich | 56,018 | 3,126 | 107,539 |
| 10 | ThyssenKrupp AG | Essen/Duisburg | 51,723 | 2,102 | 191,350 |
Infrastructure[link]
Main articles: Transport in Germany and Energy in Germany
With its central position in Europe, Germany is a transport hub. This is reflected in its dense and modern transport networks. The motorway (Autobahn) network ranks as the third largest worldwide in length.[103] Germany has established a polycentric network of high-speed trains. The InterCityExpress or ICE network of the Deutsche Bahn serves major German cities as well as destinations in neighbouring countries with speeds up to 300 kph (186 mph).[104] The largest German airports are Frankfurt Airport and Munich Airport, both hubs of Lufthansa, while Air Berlin has hubs at Berlin Tegel and Düsseldorf. Other major airports include Berlin Schönefeld, Hamburg, Cologne/Bonn and Leipzig/Halle. Both airports in Berlin will be consolidated at a site adjacent to Berlin Schönefeld, which will become Berlin Brandenburg Airport in 2013.[105][106]
As of 2008[update], Germany was the world's sixth largest consumer of energy,[107] and 60% of its primary energy was imported.[108] Government policy promotes energy conservation and renewable energy. Energy efficiency has been improving since the early 1970s; the government aims to meet the country's electricity demands using only renewable sources by 2050.[109] In 2010, energy sources were: oil (33.7%); coal, including lignite (22.9%); natural gas (21.8%); nuclear (10.8%); hydro-electric and wind power (1.5%); and other renewable sources (7.9%).[110] In 2000, the government and the nuclear power industry agreed to phase out all nuclear power plants by 2021.[111] Germany is committed to the Kyoto protocol and several other treaties promoting biodiversity, low emission standards, recycling, and the use of renewable energy, and supports sustainable development at a global level.[112] The German government has initiated wide-ranging emission reduction activities and the country's overall emissions are falling.[113] Nevertheless the country's greenhouse gas emissions were the highest in the EU as of 2010[update].[114]
Science and technology[link]
Main articles: Science and technology in Germany and List of German inventors and discoverers
Germany's achievements in the sciences have been significant, and research and development efforts form an integral part of the economy.[115] The Nobel Prize has been awarded to 103 German laureates.[116] For most of the 20th century, German laureates had more awards than those of any other nation, especially in the sciences (physics, chemistry, and physiology or medicine).[117][118]
The work of Albert Einstein and Max Planck was crucial to the foundation of modern physics, which Werner Heisenberg and Max Born developed further.[119] They were preceded by such key physicists as Hermann von Helmholtz, Joseph von Fraunhofer and Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit, among others. Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays and was the first winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901.[120] Otto Hahn was a pioneer in the fields of radioactivity and radiochemistry[121], while Ferdinand Cohn and Robert Koch were founders of microbiology. Numerous mathematicians were born in Germany, including Carl Friedrich Gauss, David Hilbert, Bernhard Riemann, Gottfried Leibniz, Karl Weierstrass, Hermann Weyl and Felix Klein. Research institutions in Germany include the Max Planck Society, the Helmholtz Association and the Fraunhofer Society. The Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize is granted to ten scientists and academics every year. With a maximum of €2.5 million per award it is one of highest endowed research prizes in the world.[122]
Germany has been the home of many famous inventors and engineers, such as Johannes Gutenberg, credited with the invention of movable type printing in Europe; Hans Geiger, the creator of the Geiger counter; and Konrad Zuse, who built the first fully automatic digital computer.[123] German inventors, engineers and industrialists such as Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, Otto Lilienthal, Gottlieb Daimler, Rudolf Diesel, Hugo Junkers and Karl Benz helped shape modern automotive and air transportation technology.[124] Aerospace engineer Wernher von Braun developed the first space rocket and later on was a prominent member of NASA and developed the Saturn V Moon rocket, which paved the way for the success of the US Apollo program. Heinrich Rudolf Hertz's work in the domain of electromagnetic radiation was pivotal to the development of modern telecommunication.[125]
Germany is also one of the leading countries in developing and using green technologies. Companies specializing in green technology have an estimated turnover of 200€ billion. Especially the expertise in engineering, science and research of Germany is eminently respectable. The lead markets of Germany's green technology industry are power generation, sustainable mobility, material efficiency, energy efficiency, waste management and recycling, sustainable water management.[126]
Demographics[link]
File:Population Pyramid of Germany in 2012.png
Population pyramid of Germany in 2012 from International Futures
With its estimated population of 81.8 million in January 2010,[2] Germany is the most populous country in the European Union and ranks as the 16th most populous country in the world.[127] Its population density stands at 229.4 inhabitants per square kilometre. The overall life expectancy in Germany at birth is 79.9 years. The fertility rate of 1.4 children per mother, or 7.9 births per 1000 inhabitants in 2009, is one of the lowest in the world.[128] Since the 1970s, Germany's death rate has continuously exceeded its birth rate.[129] The Federal Statistical Office of Germany forecast that the population will shrink to between 65 and 70 million by 2060 (depending on the level of net migration).[130]
German nationals make up 91% of the population of Germany. As of 2010[update], about seven million foreign citizens were registered in Germany, and 19% of the country's residents were of foreign or partially foreign descent (including persons descending or partially descending from ethnic German repatriates), 96% of whom lived in West Germany or Berlin.[131] The United Nations Population Fund lists Germany as host to the third-highest number of international migrants worldwide, about 5% or 10 million of all 191 million migrants.[132] As a consequence of restrictions to Germany's formerly rather unrestricted laws on asylum and immigration, the number of immigrants seeking asylum or claiming German ethnicity (mostly from the former Soviet Union) has been declining steadily since 2000.[133] In 2009, 20% of the population had immigrant roots, the highest since 1945.[134] As of 2008[update], the largest national group was from Turkey (2.5 million), followed by Italy (776,000) and Poland (687,000).[135] About 3 million "Aussiedler"—ethnic Germans, mainly from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union—have resettled in Germany since 1987.[136]
Germany has a number of large cities. The largest conurbation is the Rhine-Ruhr region (11.7 million as of 2008[update]), including Düsseldorf (the capital of North Rhine-Westphalia), Cologne, Dortmund, Essen, Duisburg, and Bochum.[137]
|
Largest cities or towns of Germany List of statistical offices in Germany 24 December 2010 |
|||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | City name | State | Pop. | Rank | City name | State | Pop. | ||
 Berlin |
1 | Berlin | Berlin | 3,471,756 | 11 | Dresden | Saxony | 523,058 |  Munich |
| 2 | Hamburg | Hamburg | 1,786,448 | 12 | Leipzig | Saxony | 522,883 | ||
| 3 | Munich | Bavaria | 1,353,186 | 13 | Hannover | Lower Saxony | 522,686 | ||
| 4 | Cologne | North Rhine-Westphalia | 1,007,119 | 14 | Nuremberg | Bavaria | 505,664 | ||
| 5 | Frankfurt | Hesse | 688,664 | 15 | Duisburg | North Rhine-Westphalia | 489,599 | ||
| 6 | Stuttgart | Baden-Württemberg | 606,588 | 16 | Bochum | North Rhine-Westphalia | 374,737 | ||
| 7 | Düsseldorf | North Rhine-Westphalia | 598,786 | 17 | Wuppertal | North Rhine-Westphalia | 349,721 | ||
| 8 | Dortmund | North Rhine-Westphalia | 580,444 | 18 | Bonn | North Rhine-Westphalia | 324,899 | ||
| 9 | Essen | North Rhine-Westphalia | 574,635 | 19 | Bielefeld | North Rhine-Westphalia | 323,270 | ||
| 10 | Bremen | Bremen (state) | 547,340 | 20 | Mannheim | Baden-Württemberg | 313,174 | ||
Religion[link]
Main article: Religion in Germany
Christianity is the largest religion in Germany, with around 51.5 million adherents (62.8%) in 2008,[138] of which 30.0% are Catholics and 29.9% are Protestants, belonging to the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD); the remainder consists of small denominations (each less than 0.5% of the German population).[139] Protestantism is concentrated in the north and east and Roman Catholicism is concentrated in the south and west;[7] 1.6% of the country's overall population declare themselves Orthodox Christians.[138]
The second largest religion is Islam with an estimated 3.8 to 4.3 million adherents (4.6% to 5.2%),[140] followed by Buddhism with 250,000 and Judaism with around 200,000 adherents (0.3%); Hinduism has some 90,000 adherents (0.1%). All other religious communities in Germany have fewer than 50,000 adherents.[141] Of the roughly 4 million Muslims, most are Sunnis and Alevites from Turkey, but there are a small number of Shi'ites and other denominations.[140] German Muslims, a large portion of whom are of Turkish origin, lack full official state recognition of their religious community.[7] Germany has Europe's third largest Jewish population (after France and the United Kingdom).[142] Approximately 50% of the Buddhists in Germany are Asian immigrants.[143]
Germans with no stated religious adherence make up 34.1% of the population, especially in the former East Germany and major metropolitan areas.[139] German reunification in 1990 greatly increased the country’s non-religious population, a legacy of the state atheism of the previously Soviet-controlled East. Christian church membership has decreased in recent decades, particularly among Protestants.[7]
Languages[link]
Main article: Languages of Germany
German is the official and predominant spoken language in Germany.[144] It is one of 23 official languages in the European Union, and one of the three working languages of the European Commission. Recognised native minority languages in Germany are Danish, Low German, Sorbian, Romany, and Frisian; they are officially protected by the ECRML. The most used immigrant languages are Turkish, Kurdish, Polish, the Balkan languages, and Russian; 67% of German citizens claim to be able to communicate in at least one foreign language and 27% in at least two languages other than their own.[144]
Standard German is a West Germanic language and is closely related to and classified alongside English, Low German, Dutch, and the Frisian languages. To a lesser extent, it is also related to the East (extinct) and North Germanic languages. Most German vocabulary is derived from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family.[145] Significant minorities of words are derived from Latin and Greek, with a smaller amount from French and most recently English (known as Denglisch). German is written using the Latin alphabet. German dialects, traditional local varieties traced back to the Germanic tribes, are distinguished from varieties of standard German by their lexicon, phonology, and syntax.[146]
Education[link]
Main article: Education in Germany
Over 99% of Germans age 15 and above are estimated to be able to read and write.[1] However, a growing number of inhabitants are functionally illiterate.[147] Responsibility for educational oversight in Germany lies primarily with the individual federated states. Since the 1960s, a reform movement attempted to unify secondary education in a Gesamtschule (comprehensive school); several West German states later simplified their school system to two or three tiers. A system of apprenticeship called Duale Ausbildung ("dual education") allows pupils in vocational training to learn in a company as well as in a state-run vocational school.[148]
Optional kindergarten education is provided for all children between three and six years old, after which school attendance is compulsory for at least nine years. Primary education usually lasts for four years and public schools are not stratified at this stage.[148] In contrast, secondary education includes three traditional types of schools focused on different levels of academic ability: the Gymnasium enrols the most gifted children and prepares students for university studies; the Realschule for intermediate students lasts six years; the Hauptschule prepares pupils for vocational education.[149]
The general entrance requirement for university is Abitur, a qualification normally based on continuous assessment during the last few years at school and final examinations; however there are a number of exceptions, and precise requirements vary, depending on the state, the university and the subject. Germany's universities are recognised internationally; in the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) for 2008, six of the top 100 universities in the world are in Germany, and 18 of the top 200.[150] Nearly all German universities are public institutions, charging tuition fees of €50–500 per semester for each student.[151]
Health[link]
Main article: Health in Germany
Germany has the world's oldest universal health care system, dating back to Otto von Bismarck's Social legislation in 1883.[152] Currently the population is covered by a fairly comprehensive health insurance plan provided by statute. Certain groups of people (lifetime officials, self-employed persons, employees with high income) can opt out of the plan and switch to a private insurance contract. Previously, these groups could also choose to do without insurance, but this option was dropped in 2009.[153] According to the World Health Organization, Germany's health care system was 77% government-funded and 23% privately funded as of 2005[update].[154] In 2005, Germany spent 11% of its GDP on health care. Germany ranked 20th in the world in life expectancy with 77 years for men and 82 years for women, and it had a very low infant mortality rate (4 per 1,000 live births).[154]
As of 2010[update], the principal cause of death was cardiovascular disease, at 41%, followed by malignant tumours, at 26%.[155] As of 2008[update], about 82,000 Germans had been infected with HIV/AIDS and 26,000 had died from the disease (cumulatively, since 1982).[156] According to a 2005 survey, 27% of German adults are smokers.[156]
Culture[link]
Main article: Culture of Germany
From its roots, culture in Germany has been shaped by major intellectual and popular currents in Europe, both religious and secular. Historically Germany has been called Das Land der Dichter und Denker (the land of poets and thinkers).[157] The federated states are in charge of the cultural institutions. There are 240 subsidised theatres, hundreds of symphonic orchestras, thousands of museums and over 25,000 libraries spread in Germany. These cultural opportunities are enjoyed by many: there are over 91 million German museum visits every year; annually, 20 million go to theatres and operas; 3.6 million per year listen to the symphonic orchestras.[158] The UNESCO inscribed 33 properties in Germany on the World Heritage List.[159]
Germany has established a high level of gender equality,[160] promotes disability rights, and is legally and socially tolerant towards homosexuals. Gays and lesbians can legally adopt their partner's biological children, and civil unions have been permitted since 2001.[161] Germany has also changed its attitude towards immigrants; since the mid-1990s, the government and the majority of Germans have begun to acknowledge that controlled immigration should be allowed based on qualification standards.[162] Germany has been named the world's second most valued nation among 50 countries in 2010.[163] A global opinion poll for the BBC revealed that Germany is recognised for having the most positive influence in the world in 2011.[164]
Arts[link]
| J.S.Bach Toccata und Fuge |
L.v. Beethoven Symphonie 5 c-moll |
R. Wagner Die Walküre |
|---|---|---|
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Numerous German painters have enjoyed international prestige through their work in diverse artistic styles. Hans Holbein the Younger, Matthias Grünewald, and Albrecht Dürer were important artists of the Renaissance, Caspar David Friedrich of Romanticism, and Max Ernst of Surrealism. Architectural contributions from Germany include the Carolingian and Ottonian styles, which were precursors of Romanesque. The region later became the site of Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque art. Germany was particularly important in the early modern movement, especially through the Bauhaus movement founded by Walter Gropius. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe became one of the world's most renowned architects in the second half of the 20th century. He conceived of the glass façade skyscraper.[165]
German music includes works by some of the world's most well-known classical music composers, including Ludwig van Beethoven, Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johannes Brahms, Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss. Germany is the largest music market in Europe, and third largest in the world.[166]
Literature and philosophy[link]
Main articles: German literature and German philosophy
German literature can be traced back to the Middle Ages and the works of writers such as Walther von der Vogelweide and Wolfram von Eschenbach. Well-known German authors include Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and Theodor Fontane. The collections of folk tales published by the Brothers Grimm popularised German folklore on an international level. Influential authors of the 20th century include Gerhart Hauptmann, Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse, Heinrich Böll and Günter Grass.[167] German-speaking book publishers produce some 700 million books every year, with about 80,000 titles, nearly 60,000 of them new. Germany comes third in quantity of books published, after the English-speaking book market and the People's Republic of China.[168] The Frankfurt Book Fair is the most important in the world for international deals and trading, with a tradition spanning over 500 years.[169]
German philosophy is historically significant. Gottfried Leibniz's contributions to rationalism; the establishment of classical German idealism by Immanuel Kant, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling; Arthur Schopenhauer's composition of metaphysical pessimism; the formulation of communist theory by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels; Friedrich Nietzsche's development of perspectivism; Gottlob Frege's contributions to the dawn of analytic philosophy; Martin Heidegger's works on Being; and the development of the Frankfurt school by Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse and Jürgen Habermas have been particularly influential. In the 21st century Germany has contributed to the development of contemporary analytic philosophy in continental Europe, along with France, Austria, Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries.[170]
Media[link]
German cinema dates back to the earliest years of the medium with the work of Max Skladanowsky, which was particularly influential with German expressionists such as Robert Wiene and Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau. Director Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) is referred to as the first modern science-fiction film. In 1930 the Austrian-American Josef von Sternberg directed The Blue Angel, the first major German sound film.[171] During the 1970s and 1980s, New German Cinema directors such as Volker Schlöndorff, Werner Herzog, Wim Wenders, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder put West German cinema on the international stage.[172] The annual European Film Awards ceremony is held every other year in Berlin, home of the European Film Academy (EFA); the Berlin Film Festival, held annually since 1951, is one of the world's foremost film festivals.[173]
More recently, films such as Good Bye, Lenin! (2003), Gegen die Wand (Head-On) (2004), Der Untergang (Downfall) (2004), and The Baader Meinhof Complex (2008) have had international success. The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film went to the German production Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum) in 1979, to Nowhere in Africa in 2002, and to Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others) in 2007.[174] Germany's television market is the largest in Europe, with some 34 million TV households. Around 90% of German households have cable or satellite TV, with a variety of free-to-view public and commercial channels.[175]
Cuisine[link]
Main article: German cuisine
German cuisine varies from region to region. The southern regions of Bavaria and Swabia, for instance, share a culinary culture with Switzerland and Austria. In all regions, meat is often eaten in sausage form.[176] Organic food has gained a market share of ca. 2%, and is expected to increase further.[177] Although wine is becoming more popular in many parts of Germany, the national alcoholic drink is beer. German beer consumption per person is declining, but at 121.4 litres in 2009 it is still among the highest in the world.[178] The Michelin guide has awarded nine restaurants in Germany three stars, the highest designation, while 15 more received two stars.[179] German restaurants have become the world's second-most decorated after France.[180]
Sports[link]
Main article: Sport in Germany
Twenty-seven million Germans are members of a sports club and an additional twelve million pursue sports individually.[181] Association football is the most popular sport. With more than 6.3 million official members, the German Football Association (Deutscher Fußball-Bund) is the largest sports organisation of its kind worldwide.[181] The Bundesliga attracts the second highest average attendance of any professional sports league in the world.
The German national football team won the FIFA World Cup in 1954, 1974 and 1990 and the UEFA European Football Championship in 1972, 1980 and 1996. Germany hosted the FIFA World Cup in 1974 and 2006 and the UEFA European Football Championship in 1988. Among the most well-known footballers are Franz Beckenbauer, Gerd Müller, Jürgen Klinsmann, Lothar Matthäus, and Oliver Kahn. Other popular spectator sports include handball, volleyball, basketball, ice hockey, and tennis.[181]
Germany is one of the leading motor sports countries in the world. Constructors like BMW and Mercedes are prominent manufacturers in motor sport. Additionally, Porsche has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans, an annual endurance race held in France, 16 times, and Audi has won it 9 times. Formula One driver Michael Schumacher has set many motor sport records during his career, having won more Formula One World Drivers' Championships and more Formula One races than any other driver; he is one of the highest paid sportsmen in history.[182]
Historically, German sportsmen have been successful contenders in the Olympic Games, ranking third in an all-time Olympic Games medal count, combining East and West German medals. In the 2008 Summer Olympics, Germany finished fifth in the medal count,[183] while in the 2006 Winter Olympics they finished first.[184] Germany has hosted the Summer Olympic Games twice, in Berlin in 1936 and in Munich in 1972. The Winter Olympic Games took place in Germany once in 1936 in the twin towns of Garmisch and Partenkirchen.
See also[link]
References[link]
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- Work cited
Fulbrook, Mary (1991). A Concise History of Germany. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-36836-0.
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| Die Prinzen | |
|---|---|
 Die Prinzen concert in Biberach/Riss |
|
| Background information | |
| Origin | Leipzig, East Germany |
| Genres | A-capella, Pop-Rock |
| Years active | 1987 – present |
| Labels | Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Ariola Express, Hansa |
| Website | http://www.dieprinzen.de (German) |
| Members | |
| Sebastian Krumbiegel Tobias Künzel Wolfgang Lenk Jens Sembdner Henri Schmidt Mathias Dietrich Ali Zieme |
|
Die Prinzen (The Princes) is a German music group. The band is made up of former members of the Thomanerchor (a choir of the Thomaskirche (St. Thomas' Church) in Leipzig, Germany, where Johann Sebastian Bach was music director for many years) and a former member of the Dresdner Kreuzchor.
Contents |
Overview[link]
Early albums consist of a cappella music. The band's first name was Die Herzbuben, but it was changed to Die Prinzen in 1991 to avoid confusion with the Volkstümliche Schlager duo Wildecker Herzbuben. The lyrics of their songs are often humorous, tongue-in-cheek critiques of German government or society. The group's most popular singles have been "Gabi und Klaus", "Millionär", "Küssen verboten", "(Du musst ein) Schwein sein", "Mein Fahrrad", "Olli Kahn" (about German star World Cup goalkeeper Oliver Kahn) and "Deutschland".
In reference to the group's name and the Brothers Grimm fairy-tale "The Frog Prince", the group's logo is a green frog wearing a crown. The frog logo has appeared in a number of album and single covers.
Their hit song "Millionär" appeared in the accompanying video to the German textbooks "Komm Mit" and "Stationen".
"Deutschland" is a very cultural and ironic song about everything of Deutschland (Germany). It was written by German songwriter Steve van Velvet.[1]
Band members[link]
Die Prinzen:
- Sebastian Krumbiegel (5. June 1966); Vocals, Keyboard
- Tobias Künzel (26. May 1964); Vocals, Guitar, Keyboard
- Wolfgang Lenk (4. September 1966, Leipzig); Vocals, Keyboard, Guitar
- Jens Sembdner (20. January 1967); Vocals, Keyboard
- Henri Schmidt (17. August 1967, Leipzig); Vocals
Backup band:
- Ali (Alexander) Zieme (23. March 1971, Leipzig); Drums
- Mathias Dietrich (24. November 1964, Leipzig); Bass
Discography[link]
Albums[link]
- Das Leben ist Grausam (1991)
- Das Leben ist Grausam (a cappella)
- Küssen verboten (1992)
- Küssen verboten (a cappella)
- Alles nur geklaut (1993)
- Alles nur geklaut (a cappella)
- Schweine (1995)
- Alles mit'm Mund (1996)
- Ganz oben - Best of (1997)
- A-Cappella-Album (1997)
- So viel Spaß für wenig Geld (1999)
- So viel Spaß für wenig Geld (a cappella)
- Festplatte (1999)
- D (2001)
- Monarchie in Germany (2003)
- HardChor (2004)
- Akustisch live (2006)
- Die Prinzen Orchestral (2007)
- Die Neuen Männer (2008)
- Es war nicht alles schlecht (2010)
Videos[link]
- VHS Das erste Video (1993)
- VHS Das Live Video (1994)
- DVD 10 Jahre Popmusik (2001)
- VHS 10 Jahre Popmusik (2001)
- DVD (Dual Disc) Akustisch live (2006)
- DVD Die Prinzen Orchestral (2007)
Singles[link]
- Gabi und Klaus (1991)
- Millionär (1991)
- Mann im Mond (1992)
- Mein Fahrrad (1992)
- Küssen verboten (1992)
- Küssen verboten - Die Königlichen Remixe (1992)
- Bombe (1992)
- 1x (1993)
- Alles nur geklaut (1993)
- Überall (1994)
- Du spinnst doch (1994)
- (Du mußt ein) Schwein sein (1995)
- Ich will ein Baby (1995)
- Alles mit'm Mund (1996)
- Hose runter (1996)
- Heute ha-ha-habe ich Geburtstag (1997)
- Ganz oben (1997)
- Junimond (1998)
- So viel Spaß für wenig Geld (1999)
- Sie will mich (1999)
- Deutschland (2001)
- Hier sind wir (2001)
- Popmusik (2001)
- Olli Kahn (2002)
- Tiere sind zum Essen da (2003)
- Chronisch Pleite (2003)
- Unsicherheit macht sich breit (2004)
- Frauen sind die neuen Männer (2008)
Charts[link]
Singles[link]
| Year | Single | D | A | CH |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | Gabi und Klaus | 2 | - | 9 |
| 1991 | Millionär | 36 | 29 | 11 |
| 1992 | Mann im Mond | 30 | - | - |
| 1992 | Mein Fahrrad | 68 | - | - |
| 1992 | Küssen verboten | 17 | - | - |
| 1993 | Alles nur geklaut | 4 | 3 | 26 |
| 1994 | Überall | 63 | - | - |
| 1995 | Du mußt ein Schwein sein | 8 | 13 | 26 |
| 1996 | Alles Mit Dem Mund | 96 | - | - |
| 1997 | Ganz oben (with the Thomanerchor) | 82 | - | - |
| 1999 | So viel Spaß für wenig Geld | 68 | - | - |
| 2001 | Deutschland | 15 | 10 | - |
| 2002 | Olli Kahn | 32 | - | - |
| 2003 | Chronisch pleite | 56 | - | - |
| 2004 | Unsicherheit macht sich breit | 77 | - | - |
Albums[link]
| Year | Album | D | A | CH |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | Das Leben ist grausam | - | 39 | 20 |
| 1992 | Küssen verboten | 6 | - | 21 |
| 1993 | Alles nur geklaut | 4 | 2 | 13 |
| 1995 | Schweine | 3 | 6 | 22 |
| 1996 | Alles mit'm Mund | 25 | - | - |
| 1997 | Ganz oben - Hits MCMXCI-MCMXCVII | 23 | - | - |
| 1999 | So viel Spaß für wenig Geld | 9 | - | - |
| 1999 | Festplatte | 88 | - | - |
| 2001 | D | 13 | 50 | - |
| 2003 | Monarchie in Germany | 17 | - | - |
| 2004 | Hardchor | 61 | - | - |
| 2006 | Akustisch Live | 28 | - | - |
| 2008 | Die neuen Männer | 42 | - | - |
| 2009 | Die neuen Männer Premium-Edition | - | - | - |
| 2010 | Es war nicht alles schlecht | 69 | - | - |
D, A, and CH represent Germany, Austria, and Switzerland respectively.
Notes[link]
- ^ ""Deutschland" song information on kazaa". kazaa. http://www.kazaa.com/#/Die-Prinzen/D/Deutschland/info.
External links[link]
- Official web site (German)
http://wn.com/Die_Prinzen
Related pages:
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This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Prinzen
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
"Haydn" redirects here. For other uses, see Haydn (disambiguation).
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Franz Joseph Haydn ( /ˈdʒoʊzəf ˈhaɪdən/; German pronunciation: [ˈjoːzɛf ˈhaɪdən] ( listen); 31 March[1] 1732 – 31 May 1809), known as Joseph Haydn,[2] was an Austrian[3] composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms. He was also instrumental in the development of the piano trio and in the evolution of sonata form.[4][5]
A lifelong resident of Austria, Haydn spent much of his career as a court musician for the wealthy Esterházy family on their remote estate. Isolated from other composers and trends in music until the later part of his long life, he was, as he put it, "forced to become original".[6] At the time of his death, he was one of the most celebrated composers in Europe.[7]
Joseph Haydn was the brother of Michael Haydn, himself a highly regarded composer, and Johann Evangelist Haydn, a tenor. He was also a close friend of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and a teacher of Ludwig van Beethoven.
Contents |
Life[link]
Childhood[link]
Joseph Haydn was born in Rohrau, Austria, a village near the border with Hungary. His father was Mathias Haydn, a wheelwright who also served as "Marktrichter", an office akin to village mayor. Haydn's mother Maria, née Koller, had previously worked as a cook in the palace of Count Harrach, the presiding aristocrat of Rohrau. Neither parent could read music;[8] however, Mathias was an enthusiastic folk musician, who during the journeyman period of his career had taught himself to play the harp. According to Haydn's later reminiscences, his childhood family was extremely musical, and frequently sang together and with their neighbors.[9]
Haydn's parents had noticed that their son was musically gifted and knew that in Rohrau he would have no chance to obtain any serious musical training. It was for this reason that they accepted a proposal from their relative Johann Matthias Frankh, the schoolmaster and choirmaster in Hainburg, that Haydn be apprenticed to Frankh in his home to train as a musician. Haydn therefore went off with Frankh to Hainburg (seven miles away) and never again lived with his parents. He was about six years old.
Life in the Frankh household was not easy for Haydn, who later remembered being frequently hungry[10] as well as constantly humiliated by the filthy state of his clothing.[11] However, he did begin his musical training there, and soon was able to play both harpsichord and violin. The people of Hainburg heard him sing treble parts in the church choir.
There is reason to think that Haydn's singing impressed those who heard him, because he was soon[12] brought to the attention of Georg von Reutter, the director of music in St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, who happened to be visiting Hainburg. Haydn passed his audition with Reutter, and in 1740 moved to Vienna, where he worked for the next nine years as a chorister, after 1745 in the company of his younger brother Michael.
Haydn lived in the Kapellhaus next to the cathedral, along with Reutter, Reutter's family, and the other four choirboys.[13] He was instructed in Latin and other school subjects as well as voice, violin, and keyboard.[14] Reutter was of little help to Haydn in the areas of music theory and composition, giving him only two lessons in his entire time as chorister.[15] However, since St. Stephen's was one of the leading musical centers in Europe, Haydn was able to learn a great deal simply by serving as a professional musician there.[16]
Like Frankh before him, Reutter did not always bother to make sure Haydn was properly fed. As he later told his biographer Albert Christoph Dies, Haydn was motivated to sing very well, in hopes of gaining more invitations to perform before aristocratic audiences—where the singers were usually served refreshments.[17]
Struggles as a freelancer[link]
By 1749, Haydn had matured physically to the point that he was no longer able to sing high choral parts—the Empress herself complained to Reutter about his singing, calling it "crowing".[18] One day, Haydn carried out a prank, snipping off the pigtail of a fellow chorister.[18] This was enough for Reutter: Haydn was first caned, then summarily dismissed and sent into the streets with no home to go to.[19] He had the good fortune to be taken in by a friend, Johann Michael Spangler, who shared his family's crowded garret room with Haydn for a few months . Haydn immediately began his pursuit of a career as a freelance musician.
During this arduous time, Haydn worked at many different jobs: as a music teacher, as a street serenader, and eventually, in 1752, as valet–accompanist for the Italian composer Nicola Porpora, from whom he later said he learned "the true fundamentals of composition".[20] He also was briefly in Count Friedrich Wilhelm von Haugwitz's employ, playing the organ in the Bohemian Chancellery chapel at the Judenplatz.[21]
When he was a chorister, Haydn had not received serious training in music theory and composition, which he perceived as a serious gap. To fill it, he worked his way through the counterpoint exercises in the text Gradus ad Parnassum by Johann Joseph Fux, and carefully studied the work of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, whom he later acknowledged as an important influence.[22]
As his skills increased, Haydn began to acquire a public reputation, first as the composer of an opera, Der krumme Teufel "The Limping Devil", written for the comic actor Johann Joseph Felix Kurz, whose stage name was "Bernardon". The work was premiered successfully in 1753, but was soon closed down by the censors.[23] Haydn also noticed, apparently without annoyance, that works he had simply given away were being published and sold in local music shops.[24] Between 1754 and 1756 Haydn also worked freelance for the court in Vienna. He was among several musicians who were paid for services as supplementary musicians at balls given for the imperial children during carnival season, and as supplementary singers in the imperial chapel (the Hofkapelle) in Lent and Holy Week.[25]
With the increase in his reputation, Haydn eventually obtained aristocratic patronage, crucial for the career of a composer in his day. Countess Thun,[26] having seen one of Haydn's compositions, summoned him and engaged him as her singing and keyboard teacher.[27] In 1756, Baron Carl Josef Fürnberg employed Haydn at his country estate, Weinzierl, where the composer wrote his first string quartets. Fürnberg later recommended Haydn to Count Morzin, who, in 1757,[28] became his first full time employer.[29]
The years as Kapellmeister[link]
Haydn's job title under Count Morzin was Kapellmeister, that is, music director. He led the count's small orchestra and wrote his first symphonies for this ensemble. In 1760, with the security of a Kapellmeister position, Haydn married. His wife was the former Maria Anna Aloysia Apollonia Keller (1729–1800), the sister of Therese (b. 1733), with whom Haydn had previously been in love. Haydn and his wife had a completely unhappy marriage,[30] from which the laws of the time permitted them no escape; and they produced no children. Both took lovers.[31]
Count Morzin soon suffered financial reverses that forced him to dismiss his musical establishment, but Haydn was quickly offered a similar job (1761) by Prince Paul Anton, head of the immensely wealthy Esterházy family. Haydn's job title was only Vice-Kapellmeister, but he was immediately placed in charge of most of the Esterházy musical establishment, with the old Kapellmeister, Gregor Werner, retaining authority only for church music. When Werner died in 1766, Haydn was elevated to full Kapellmeister.
As a "house officer" in the Esterházy establishment, Haydn wore livery and followed the family as they moved among their various palaces, most importantly the family's ancestral seat Schloss Esterházy in Eisenstadt and later on Eszterháza, a grand new palace built in rural Hungary in the 1760s. Haydn had a huge range of responsibilities, including composition, running the orchestra, playing chamber music for and with his patrons, and eventually the mounting of operatic productions. Despite this backbreaking workload,[32] the job was in artistic terms a superb opportunity for Haydn.[33] The Esterházy princes (Paul Anton, then from 1762–1790 Nikolaus I) were musical connoisseurs who appreciated his work and gave him daily access to his own small orchestra.
During the nearly thirty years that Haydn worked at the Esterházy court, he produced a flood of compositions, and his musical style continued to develop. His popularity in the outside world also increased. Gradually, Haydn came to write as much for publication as for his employer, and several important works of this period, such as the Paris symphonies (1785–1786) and the original orchestral version of The Seven Last Words of Christ (1786), were commissions from abroad.
Haydn also gradually came to feel more isolated and lonely, particularly as the court came to spend most of the year at Esterháza, far from Vienna, rather than the closer-by Eisenstadt.[34] Haydn particularly longed to visit Vienna because of his friendships there.[35]
Of these, a particularly important one was with Maria Anna von Genzinger (1754–93), the wife of Prince Nikolaus's personal physician in Vienna, who began a close, platonic, relationship with the composer in 1789. Haydn wrote to Mrs. Genzinger often, expressing his loneliness at Eszterháza and his happiness for the few occasions on which he was able to visit her in Vienna; later on, Haydn wrote to her frequently from London. Her premature death in 1793 was a blow to Haydn, and his F minor variations for piano, Hob. XVII:6, may have been written in response to her death.[36]
Another friend in Vienna was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whom Haydn had met sometime around 1784. According to later testimony by Michael Kelly and others, the two composers occasionally played in string quartets together. Haydn was hugely impressed with Mozart's work and praised it unstintingly to others. Mozart evidently returned the esteem, as seen in his dedication of a set of six quartets, now called the "Haydn" quartets, to his friend. For further details see Haydn and Mozart.
The London journeys[link]
In 1790, Prince Nikolaus died and was succeeded as prince by his son Anton. Following a trend of the time,[37] Anton sought to economize by dismissing most of the court musicians. Haydn retained a nominal appointment with Anton, at a reduced salary of 400 florins, as well as a 1000-florin pension from Nikolaus.[38] Since Anton had little need of Haydn's services he was willing to let Haydn travel elsewhere, and the composer accepted a lucrative offer from Johann Peter Salomon, a German impresario, to visit England and conduct new symphonies with a large orchestra.
The visit (1791–1792), along with a repeat visit (1794–1795), was a huge success. Audiences flocked to Haydn's concerts; Haydn augmented his fame and made large profits, thus becoming financially secure.[39] Charles Burney reviewed the first concert thus: "Haydn himself presided at the piano-forte; and the sight of that renowned composer so electrified the audience, as to excite an attention and a pleasure superior to any that had ever been caused by instrumental music in England."[40]
Musically, the visits to England generated some of Haydn's best-known work, including the Surprise, Military, Drumroll, and London symphonies, the Rider quartet, and the "Gypsy Rondo" piano trio. The only misstep in the venture was an opera, L'anima del filosofo, which Haydn was contracted to compose, but whose performance was blocked by intrigues.[41] Haydn made many new friends and was involved for a time in a romantic relationship with Rebecca Schroeter.
While traveling to London in 1790, Haydn had met the young Ludwig van Beethoven in his native city of Bonn. On Haydn's return, Beethoven came to Vienna and during the time up to the second London visit was Haydn's pupil. For discussion of their relationship, see Beethoven and his contemporaries.[42]
Final years in Vienna[link]
Haydn returned to Vienna in 1795. Prince Anton had died, and his successor Nikolaus II proposed that the Esterházy musical establishment be revived with Haydn serving again as Kapellmeister. Haydn took up the position, though only on a part-time basis. He spent his summers with the Esterházys in Eisenstadt, and over the course of several years wrote six masses for them. But by this time Haydn had become a public figure in Vienna. He spent most of his time in his own home, a large house in the suburb of Gumpendorf,[43] and wrote works for public performance. In collaboration with his librettist and mentor Gottfried van Swieten, and with funding from van Swieten's Gesellschaft der Associierten, Haydn composed his two great oratorios The Creation (1798) and The Seasons (1801). Both were enthusiastically received. Haydn frequently appeared before the public, often leading performances of The Creation for charity benefits. He also composed instrumental music: the popular Trumpet Concerto and the last nine in his long series of string quartets, including the Fifths, Emperor, and Sunrise quartets.
During the later years of this successful period Haydn faced incipient old age and fluctuating health, and he had to struggle to complete his final works. By about 1802, his condition had declined to the point that he became physically unable to compose.[44] This was doubtless very difficult for him because, as he acknowledged, the flow of fresh musical ideas waiting to be worked out as compositions did not cease. Haydn was well cared for by his servants, and he received many visitors and public honours during his last years, but they could not have been very happy years for him. During his illness, Haydn often found solace by sitting at the piano and playing Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser, which he had composed himself as a patriotic gesture in 1797.[45] This melody was later used for the Austrian and German national anthems.
A final triumph occurred on 27 March 1808, when a performance of The Creation was organized in Haydn's honor. The very frail composer was brought into the hall on an armchair to the sound of trumpets and drums, and was greeted by Beethoven, by Salieri (who led the performance), and by other musicians and members of the aristocracy – many of whom probably sensed that they were saying goodbye to the elderly composer. Haydn was both moved and exhausted by the experience, and had to depart at intermission.[46]
Haydn lived on for another year. He died, aged 77, at the end of May 1809, shortly after an attack on Vienna by the French army under Napoleon. Among his last words was his attempt to calm and reassure his servants when cannon shot fell in the neighborhood:[47] "My children, have no fear, for where Haydn is, no harm can fall." Two weeks later, a memorial service was held in the Schottenkirche on 15 June 1809, at which Mozart's Requiem was performed.
Character and appearance[link]
James Webster writes of Haydn's public character thus: "Haydn's public life exemplified the Enlightenment ideal of the honnête homme (honest man): the man whose good character and worldly success enable and justify each other. His modesty and probity were everywhere acknowledged. These traits were not only prerequisites to his success as Kapellmeister, entrepreneur and public figure, but also aided the favourable reception of his music."[48] Haydn was especially respected by the Eszterházy court musicians whom he supervised, as he maintained a cordial working atmosphere and effectively represented the musicians' interests with their employer; see Papa Haydn and the tale of the "Farewell" Symphony.
Haydn had a robust sense of humor, evident in his love of practical jokes[49] and often apparent in his music, and he had many friends. For much of his life he benefited from a "happy and naturally cheerful temperament",[50] but in his later life, there is evidence for periods of depression, notably in the correspondence with Mrs. Genzinger and in Dies's biography, based on visits made in Haydn's old age.
Haydn was a devout Catholic who often turned to his rosary when he had trouble composing, a practice that he usually found to be effective.[51] He normally began the manuscript of each composition with "in nomine Domini" ("in the name of the Lord") and ended with "Laus Deo" ("praise be to God").[52]
Haydn was short in stature, perhaps as a result of having been underfed throughout most of his youth. He was not handsome, and like many in his day he was a survivor of smallpox, his face being pitted with the scars of this disease. His biographer Dies wrote, "he couldn't understand how it happened that in his life he had been loved by many a pretty woman. 'They couldn't have been led to it by my beauty'".[53]
His nose, large and aquiline, was disfigured by polypus, which he suffered from for much of his adult life.[54] This was an agonizing and debilitating disease in the 18th century, and at times it prevented him from writing music.[55]
Works[link]
James Webster summarizes Haydn's role in the history of classical music as follows:[56] "He excelled in every musical genre… He is familiarly known as the 'father of the symphony' and could with greater justice be thus regarded for the string quartet; no other composer approaches his combination of productivity, quality and historical importance in these genres."
Structure and character of his music[link]
A central characteristic of Haydn's music is the development of larger structures out of very short, simple musical motifs, often derived from standard accompanying figures. The music is often quite formally concentrated, and the important musical events of a movement can unfold rather quickly.[57]
Haydn's work was central to the development of what came to be called sonata form. His practice, however, differed in some ways from that of Mozart and Beethoven, his younger contemporaries who likewise excelled in this form of composition. Haydn was particularly fond of the so-called "monothematic exposition", in which the music that establishes the dominant key is similar or identical to the opening theme. Haydn also differs from Mozart and Beethoven in his recapitulation sections, where he often rearranges the order of themes compared to the exposition and uses extensive thematic development.[58]
Haydn's formal inventiveness also led him to integrate the fugue into the classical style and to enrich the rondo form with more cohesive tonal logic (see sonata rondo form). Haydn was also the principal exponent of the double variation form—variations on two alternating themes, which are often major- and minor-mode versions of each other.
Perhaps more than any other composer's, Haydn's music is known for its humor.[59] The most famous example is the sudden loud chord in the slow movement of his "Surprise" symphony; Haydn's many other musical jokes include numerous false endings (e.g., in the quartets Op. 33 No. 2 and Op. 50 No. 3), and the remarkable rhythmic illusion placed in the trio section of the third movement of Op. 50 No. 1.
Much of the music was written to please and delight a prince, and its emotional tone is correspondingly upbeat.[citation needed] This tone also reflects, perhaps, Haydn's fundamentally healthy and well-balanced personality. Occasional minor-key works, often deadly serious in character, form striking exceptions to the general rule. Haydn's fast movements tend to be rhythmically propulsive and often impart a great sense of energy, especially in the finales. Some characteristic examples of Haydn's "rollicking" finale type are found in the "London" symphony No. 104, the string quartet Op. 50 No. 1, and the piano trio Hob XV: 27. Haydn's early slow movements are usually not too slow in tempo, relaxed, and reflective. Later on, the emotional range of the slow movements increases, notably in the deeply felt slow movements of the quartets Op. 76 Nos. 3 and 5, the Symphonies No. 98 and 102, and the piano trio Hob XV: 23. The minuets tend to have a strong downbeat and a clearly popular character. Over time, Haydn turned some of his minuets into "scherzi" which are much faster, at one beat to the bar.
Evolution of Haydn's style[link]
Haydn's early work dates from a period in which the compositional style of the High Baroque (seen in Bach and Handel) had gone out of fashion. This was a period of exploration and uncertainty, and Haydn, born 18 years before the death of Bach, was himself one of the musical explorers of this time.[60] An older contemporary whose work Haydn acknowledged as an important influence was Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.[22]
Tracing Haydn's work over the six decades in which it was produced (roughly, 1749 to 1802), one finds a gradual but steady increase in complexity and musical sophistication, which developed as Haydn learned from his own experience and that of his colleagues. Several important landmarks have been observed in the evolution of Haydn's musical style.
In the late 1760s and early 1770s Haydn entered a stylistic period known as "Sturm und Drang" (storm and stress). This term is taken from a literary movement of about the same time, though it appears that the musical development actually preceded the literary one by a few years.[61] The musical language of this period is similar to what went before, but it is deployed in work that is more intensely expressive, especially in the works in minor keys. James Webster describes the works of this period as "longer, more passionate, and more daring."[62] Some of the most famous compositions of this time are the "Trauer" (Mourning) Symphony No. 44, "Farewell" Symphony No. 45, the piano sonata in C minor (Hob. XVI/20, L. 33), and the six string quartets of Op. 20 (the "Sun" quartets), all from ca. 1771–1772. It was also around this time that Haydn became interested in writing fugues in the Baroque style, and three of the Op. 20 quartets end with such fugues.
Following the climax of the "Sturm und Drang", Haydn returned to a lighter, more overtly entertaining style. There are no quartets from this period, and the symphonies take on new features: the scoring often includes trumpets and timpani. These changes are often related to a major shift in Haydn's professional duties, which moved him away from "pure" music and toward the production of comic operas. Several of the operas were Haydn's own work (see List of operas by Joseph Haydn); these are seldom performed today. Haydn sometimes recycled his opera music in symphonic works,[63] which helped him continue his career as a symphonist during this hectic decade.
In 1779, an important change in Haydn's contract permitted him to publish his compositions without prior authorization from his employer. This may have encouraged Haydn to rekindle his career as a composer of "pure" music. The change made itself felt most dramatically in 1781, when Haydn published the six string quartets of Opus 33, announcing (in a letter to potential purchasers) that they were written in "a new and completely special way".[64] Charles Rosen has argued that this assertion on Haydn's part was not just sales talk, but meant quite seriously; and he points out a number of important advances in Haydn's compositional technique that appear in these quartets, advances that mark the advent of the Classical style in full flower. These include a fluid form of phrasing, in which each motif emerges from the previous one without interruption, the practice of letting accompanying material evolve into melodic material, and a kind of "Classical counterpoint" in which each instrumental part maintains its own integrity. These traits continue in the many quartets that Haydn wrote after Opus 33.[65]
In the 1790s, stimulated by his England journeys, Haydn developed what Rosen calls his "popular style", a method of composition that, with unprecedented success, created music having great popular appeal but retaining a learned and rigorous musical structure.[66] An important element of the popular style was the frequent use of folk or folk-like material, as discussed in the article Haydn and folk music. Haydn took care to deploy this material in appropriate locations, such as the endings of sonata expositions or the opening themes of finales. In such locations, the folk material serves as an element of stability, helping to anchor the larger structure.[67] Haydn's popular style can be heard in virtually all of his later work, including the twelve London symphonies, the late quartets and piano trios, and the two late oratorios.
The return to Vienna in 1795 marked the last turning point in Haydn's career. Although his musical style evolved little, his intentions as a composer changed. While he had been a servant, and later a busy entrepreneur, Haydn wrote his works quickly and in profusion, with frequent deadlines. As a rich man, Haydn now felt that he had the privilege of taking his time and writing for posterity. This is reflected in the subject matter of The Creation (1798) and The Seasons (1801), which address such weighty topics as the meaning of life and the purpose of humankind, and represent an attempt to render the sublime in music. Haydn's new intentions also meant that he was willing to spend much time on a single work: both oratorios took him over a year to complete. Haydn once remarked that he had worked on The Creation so long because he wanted it to last.[68]
The change in Haydn's approach was important in the history of classical music, as other composers were soon following his lead. Notably, Beethoven adopted the practice of taking his time and aiming high.[69]
Identifying Haydn's works[link]
Haydn's works are listed in a comprehensive catalogue prepared by Anthony van Hoboken. This Hoboken catalogue provides each work with an identifying number, called its Hoboken number (abbreviation: H. or Hob.). The string quartets also have Hoboken numbers, but are usually identified instead by their opus numbers, which have the advantage of indicating the groups of six quartets that Haydn published together; thus for example the string quartet Opus 76, No. 3 is the third of the six quartets published in 1799 as Opus 76.
Media[link]
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Performed by the Amigos do JPC with Pedro Carlos Silva (piano)
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See also[link]
Works[link]
- Hoboken catalogue
- List of concertos by Joseph Haydn
- List of masses by Joseph Haydn
- List of operas by Joseph Haydn
- List of piano trios by Joseph Haydn
- List of solo piano compositions by Joseph Haydn
- List of string quartets by Joseph Haydn
- List of symphonies by Joseph Haydn
- Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser (God save Franz, the Emperor; the melody was later used in Das Lied der Deutschen, which is still Germany's national anthem.)
- The Creation
- The Seasons
- Baryton, for the baryton trios Haydn wrote for prince Nikolaus Esterházy
Contemporaries[link]
- Haydn and Mozart
- Beethoven and his contemporaries, i.e., Joseph Haydn
- Marianne von Martinez—as a child one of Haydn's first students; as an adult a friend and an eminent musician in her own right
- Johann Peter Salomon—organizer of the London journeys
- Gottfried van Swieten—the librettist of The Creation and The Seasons
- List of Austrians in music
Other topics[link]
- Haydn and folk music
- Haydn's head—how it was stolen after his death
- Joseph Haydn's ethnicity—an old controversy: was Haydn a Croatian?
- List of residences of Joseph Haydn
- "Papa" Haydn
- Mannersdorf am Leithagebirge—where Haydn visited and built his career during summer 1753
Notes[link]
- ^ The date is uncertain. Haydn himself told others he was born on this day (Geiringer (1982, 9); Jones (1810, 8)), but some of his family members reported 1 April instead (Geiringer). The difficulty arises from the fact that in Haydn's day official records recorded not the birth date but rather the date of baptism, which in Haydn's case was 1 April (Wyn Jones 2009, 2–3).
- ^ Although he is sometimes called "Franz Joseph Haydn", the name "Franz" was not used in the composer's lifetime and is avoided by scholars. (Webster, James: "Haydn, Joseph", Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 18 January 2007), http://www.grovemusic.com)
- ^ Webster and Feder, 2001
- ^ Rosen 1997, pp. 43–54
- ^ Smallman, Basil (1992). The Piano Trio: Its History, Technique, and Repertoire. Oxford University Press. pp. 16–19. ISBN 0-19-318307-2.
- ^ Haydn made the remark to his friend and biographer Georg August Griesinger; cited from English version by Vernon Gotwals (Griesinger 1963:17)
- ^ Harrison, Bernard (1998). Haydn, the "Paris" symphonies. Cambridge University Press. pp. 20ff. ISBN 0-521-47164-8.
- ^ Haydn reported this in his 1776 Autobiographical sketch.
- ^ Dies 1963, pp. 80–81
- ^ Griesinger 1963, p. 9
- ^ Dies 1963, p. 82
- ^ Probably in 1739; Finscher 2000, p. 12
- ^ Wyn Jones (2009, 12–13)
- ^ Finscher 2000, p. 12
- ^ Griesinger 1963, p. 10
- ^ Landon & Jones 1988, p. 27
- ^ Dies 1963, p. 87
- ^ a b Dies (1810, 89)
- ^ Geiringer 1982, p. 27
- ^ Larsen 1980, p. 8
- ^ Rita Steblin, 'Haydns Orgeldienste "in der damaligen Gräfl. Haugwitzischen Kapelle"', in: Wiener Geschichtsblätter 65/2000, p. 124-34.
- ^ a b Geiringer 1982, p. 30
- ^ Geiringer 1982, pp. 30–32
- ^ Griesinger 1963, p. 15
- ^ Dexter Edge, 'New Sources for Haydn’s Early Biography', unpublished paper given at the AMS Montréal, 7 November 1993, (see The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2001), vol. 11, p. 265).
- ^ Various individuals bore the title "Countess Thun" over time. Candidates for the countess who engaged Haydn are (a) "the elder Countess Maria Christine Thun", (Webster 2002); (b) Maria Wilhelmine Thun (later a famous salon hostess and patroness of Mozart), (Volkmar Braunbehrens, 1990, Mozart in Vienna).
- ^ Webster 2002, p. 8. Webster expresses doubts, since the source is the early biography of Nicolas-Étienne Framery, judged (Webster 2002, p. 1) the least reliable of Haydn's early biographers.
- ^ This date is uncertain, since the early biography of Griesinger (1963) gives 1759. For the evidence supporting the earlier date see Landon & Jones (1988, p. 34) and Webster (2002, p. 10).
- ^ Source for this paragraph: Geiringer 1982, pp. 34–35
- ^ See, e.g., Geiringer 1982, pp. 36–40
- ^ Mrs. Haydn's paramour (1770) was Ludwig Guttenbrunn, an artist who produced the portrait of Haydn seen above (Landon & Jones 1988, p. 109). Joseph Haydn had a long relationship, starting in 1779, with the singer Luigia Polzelli, and was probably the father of her son Antonio (Landon & Jones 1988, p. 116).
- ^ Robbins Landon and Jones (1988, 100) write: "Haydn's duties were crushing. We can notice the effect in his handwriting, which becomes hastier as the 1770s turn to the 1780s: the notation starts to become ever more careless in the scores and the abbreviations multiply."
- ^ This view is given, for instance, by Webster (2002, p. 13) and Landon & Jones (1988, p. 37).
- ^ Geiringer 1982, p. 60
- ^ For details see Geiringer 1982, Chapter 6
- ^ Geiringer 1982, p. 316, citing Robbins Landon
- ^ Jones (2009a)
- ^ Geiringer (1982, 96)
- ^ According to Jones, the London visits yielded a net profit of 15,000 florins. Haydn continued to prosper after the visits and at his death left an estate valued at 55,713 florins. These were substantial sums; for comparison, the house he bought in Gumpendorf in 1793 (and then remodeled) cost only 1370 florins (all figures from Jones 2009:144–146).
- ^ From Burney's memoirs; quoted from Landon & Jones (1988, p. 234)
- ^ The premier performance occurred only in 1951, at the Florence May Festival with Maria Callas in the role of Euridice. The opera and its history are discussed in Geiringer 1982, pp. 342–343.
- ^ Geiringer 1982, pp. 131–135
- ^ The house, at Haydngasse 19, has since 1899 been a Haydn museum ([1], [showUid]=27&cHash=0a55f69cfa).
- ^ Diagnosis was uncertain in Haydn's day, so the precise illness is unlikely ever to be identified. Haydn's symptoms were weakness, dizziness, inability to concentrate, and painfully swollen legs (Jones 2009a:146). Jones (2009b:216) suggests that Haydn suffered from arteriosclerosis.
- ^ Geiringer 1982, pp. 161–2
- ^ Source for this paragraph: Geiringer (1982:186–187)
- ^ Geiringer 1982, p. 189
- ^ Webster 2002, p. 44
- ^ Griesinger 1963, p. 20; Dies 1963, pp. 92–93
- ^ Dies 1963, p. 91
- ^ Griesinger 1963, p. 54
- ^ Larsen 1980, p. 81
- ^ Dies 1963, p. 157; translation taken from Robbins Landon and Jones 1988
- ^ Hadden 2010, p. 158
- ^ Discussed in "The Agony of Nasal Polyps and the Terror of Their Removal 200 Years Ago" by Jack Cohen, MD. This article appeared in The Laryngoscope, 108(9): 1311–1313, September 1998. No free online text available.
- ^ Online edition, article "Joseph Haydn"; downloaded 3 Feb. 2007
- ^ Sutcliffe (1989, p. 343) mentions this in a criticism of contemporary Haydn performance practice: "[Haydn's] music sometime seems to 'live on its nerves' ... It is above all in this respect that Haydn performances often fail, whereby most interpreters lack the mental agility to deal with the ever-changing 'physiognomy' of Haydn's music, subsiding instead into an ease of manner and a concern for broader effects that they have acquired in their playing of Mozart."
- ^ Hughes (1970, p. 112) writes: "Having begun to 'develop', he could not stop; his recapitulations begin to take on irregular contours, sometimes sharply condensed, sometimes surprisingly expanded, losing their first tame symmetry to regain a balance of a far higher and more satisfying order."
- ^ See, for instance, Brendel (2001), which focuses on the humor of Haydn and Beethoven.
- ^ Rosen (1997, p. 57) writes, "the period from 1750 to 1775 was penetrated by eccentricity, hit-or-miss experimentation, resulting in works which are still difficult to accept today because of their oddities." Similar remarks are made by Hughes (1970, pp. 111–112)
- ^ See Webster (2002, p. 18): "the term has been criticized: taken from the title of a play of 1776 by Maximilian Klinger, it properly pertains to a literary movement of the middle and late 1770s rather than a musical one of about 1768–1772."
- ^ Webster 2002, p. 18
- ^ Webster and Feder 2001, section 3.iii
- ^ Original German "Neu, gantz besonderer Art"; Sisman (1993, 219)
- ^ Rosen's case that Opus 33 represents a "revolution in style" (1971 and 1997, 116) can be found in chapter III.1 of (Rosen 1971 and 1997). For dissenting views, see Larsen (1980, p. 102) and Webster (1991).
- ^ Rosen discusses the popular style in ch. VI.1 of Rosen (1971 and 1997).
- ^ Rosen (1997 and 2001), 333–337
- ^ Geiringer 1982, p. 158
- ^ For discussion, see Antony Hopkins (1981) The Nine Symphonies of Beethoven, Heinemann, London, pp. 7–8.
References[link]
- Biographical sources
- Dies, Albert Christoph (1963). "Biographical Accounts of Joseph Haydn". In Gotwals, Vernon, translator and editor. Haydn: Two Contemporary Portraits. Milwaukee: University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 0-299-02791-0. A translation from the original German: "Biographische Nachrichten von Joseph Haydn nach mündlichen Erzählungen desselben entworfen und herausgegeben" ("Biographical accounts of Joseph Haydn, written and edited from his own spoken narratives") (1810). Camesinaische Buchhandlung, Vienna. One of the first biographies of Haydn, written on the basis of 30 interviews carried out during the composer's old age.
- Finscher, Ludwig (2000). Joseph Haydn und seine Zeit. Laaber: Laaber-Verlag. ISBN 3-921518-94-6. Highly detailed discussion of life and work; in German.
- Geiringer, Karl; Geiringer, Irene (1982). Haydn: A Creative Life in Music (3rd ed.). University of California. ISBN 0-520-04316-2. The first edition was published in 1946 with Karl Geiringer as the sole author.
- Griesinger, Georg August (1963). "Biographical Notes Concerning Joseph Haydn". In Gotwals, Vernon, translator and editor. Haydn: Two Contemporary Portraits. Milwaukee: University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 0-299-02791-0. A translation from the original German: "Biographische Notizen über Joseph Haydn" (1810). Leipzig. Like Dies's, a biography produced from interviews with the elderly Haydn.
- Hadden, James Cuthbert (2010). Haydn (Reissue ed.). London: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 1-108-01987-0. http://books.google.com/books?id=0IXbsEBrSK0C&pg=PA106.
- Hughes, Rosemary (1970). Haydn (Revised ed.). New York: Farrar Strauss and Giroux. ISBN 0-460-02281-4. Originally published in 1950. Gives a sympathetic and witty account of Haydn's life, along with a survey of the music.
- Jones, David Wyn (2009a) The Life of Haydn. Oxford University Press. Focuses on biography rather than musical works; an up-to-date study benefiting from recent scholarly research on Haydn's life and times.
- Jones, David Wyn (2009b) Oxford Composer Companions: Haydn. Oxford University Press. A one-volume encyclopedia with detailed contributions from many Haydn scholars.
- Landon, H.C. Robbins (1976–1980). Haydn: Chronicle and Works. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-37003-5. An extensive compilation of original sources in five volumes.
- Landon, H. C. Robbins; Jones, David Wyn (1988). Haydn: His Life and Music. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-37265-9. Biography chapters by Robbins Landon, excerpted from Robbins Landon (1976–1980) and rich in original source documents. Analysis and appreciation of the works by Jones.
- Larsen, Jens Peter (1980). "Joseph Haydn". New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Published separately as The New Grove: Haydn. New York: Norton. 1982. ISBN 0-393-01681-1.
- Webster, James; Feder, Georg (2001). "Joseph Haydn". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Published separately as a book: The New Grove Haydn. New York: Macmillan. 2002. ISBN 0-19-516904-2. Careful scholarship with little subjective interpretation; covers both life and music, and includes a very detailed list of works.
- Criticism and analysis sources
- Brendel, Alfred (2001). "Does classical music have to be entirely serious?". In Margalit, Edna; Margalit, Avishai. Isaiah Berlin: A Celebration. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 193–204. ISBN 0-226-84096-4. On jokes in Haydn and Beethoven.
- Clark, Caryl, ed. (2005). The Cambridge Companion to Haydn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-83347-7. Covers each of the genres Haydn composed in as well as stylistic and interpretive contexts and performance and reception.
- Griffiths, Paul (1983). The String Quartet. New York: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0-500-01311-X.
- Hughes, Rosemary (1966). Haydn String Quartets. London: BBC. A brief (55 page) introduction to Haydn's string quartets.
- Rosen, Charles (1997). The classical style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven (2nd ed.). New York: Norton. ISBN 0-393-31712-9. First edition published in 1971. Covers much of Haydn's output and seeks to explicate Haydn's central role in the creation of the classical style. The work has been influential, provoking both positive citation and work (e.g., Webster 1991) written in reaction.
- Sisman, Elaine (1993) Haydn and the classical variation. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-38315-X.
- Sutcliffe, W. Dean (1989). "Haydn's Musical Personality". The Musical Times 130 (1756): 341–344. DOI:10.2307/966030. JSTOR 966030.
- Sutcliffe, W. Dean (1992). Haydn, string quartets, op. 50. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-39103-2. Covers not just Op. 50 but also its relevance to Haydn's other output as well as his earlier quartets.
- Webster, James (1991). Haydn’s "Farewell" symphony and the idea of classical style: through-composition and cyclic integration in his instrumental music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-38520-2. This book focuses on a single work, but contains many observations and opinions about Haydn in general.
External links[link]
 |
Book: Joseph Haydn |
| Wikipedia books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print. | |
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Joseph Haydn |
 |
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Joseph Haydn |
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Wikisource has the text of an Encyclopaedia Britannica (9th ed.) article about Joseph Haydn. |
- Albert Christoph Dies: (German) Biographische Nachrichten von Joseph Haydn. Wien: Camesinaische Buchhandlung, 1810.
- Haydn's Late Oratorios: The Creation and The Seasons by Brian Robins
- Full text of the biography Haydn by J. Cuthbert Hadden, 1902, from Project Gutenberg. The end of book contains documentary material including a number of Haydn's letters. Alternatively scanned copy Haydn at archive.org.
- Works by or about Joseph Haydn in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
- No Royal Directive: Joseph Haydn and the String Quartet by Ron Drummond
- musicologie.org, with biography (French)
- 'Haydn – Quartet in F minor, Op.20 No.5', Lecture by Professor Roger Parker, with the Badke Quartet, Gresham College, 8 April 2008 (available for video, audio and text download).
- Haydn anniversary page on Bachtrack, includes lists of live performances
Scores and recordings[link]
- Free scores by Joseph Haydn at the International Music Score Library Project
- Free scores by Joseph Haydn in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
- Free scores by Joseph Haydn in the Werner Icking Music Archive (WIMA)
- www.kreusch-sheet-music.net – Free Scores by Haydn
- Free scores at the Mutopia Project
- Works by Joseph Haydn at Project Gutenberg
- Kunst der Fuge: Franz Joseph Haydn – Hundreds of MIDI files
- Haydn's page at Classical Archives
- Franz Joseph Haydn on Naxos Records
- Haydn Symphonies from the British Library Sound Archive
- Complete recording of Joseph Haydns Pianosonatas on a sampled Walther Pianoforte
- Complete recording of Joseph Haydns Pianosonatas on a sampled Steinwy D
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| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Haydn, Joseph |
| Alternative names | Haydn, Franz Joseph; "Father of the Symphony"; "Father of the String Quartet" |
| Short description | Austrian composer |
| Date of birth | 31 March 1732 |
| Place of birth | Rohrau |
| Date of death | 31 May 1809 |
| Place of death | Vienna |
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This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
 Prokop at the 2008 Tour de Corse. |
|
| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Nationality |  Czech |
| Born | (1982-10-04) October 4, 1982 (age 29) |
| World Rally Championship record | |
| Active years | 2005–present |
| Teams | Czech Ford National Team |
| Rallies | 67 |
| Championships | 0 |
| Rally wins | 0 |
| Podiums | 0 |
| Stage wins | 1 |
| Total points | 10 |
| First rally | 2005 Monte Carlo Rally |
Martin Prokop (born 4 October 1982 in Jihlava) is a Czech rally driver. He won the Junior World Rally Championship in the 2009 season.
Contents |
Career[link]
After competing in the Czech Rally Championship for four years, Prokop debuted in the World Rally Championship at the 2005 Monte Carlo Rally, finishing ninth in the Junior World Rally Championship (JWRC) category. He ended his season with the same position in the overall junior standings. In the 2006 season, Prokop took his first JWRC win at the Rally Catalunya and finished tenth in the championship.[1]
In 2007, Prokop continued in the junior class and won the Rallye Deutschland and the Tour de Corse. In the overall standings, he placed third behind the two Swifts of Per-Gunnar Andersson and Urmo Aava. In the 2008 season, Prokop contested both the JWRC and the Production World Rally Championship (PWRC), finishing third and fifth, respectively.
In 2009, Prokop continued competing in both WRC support championships. In August 2009, he secured the junior world title with a win at the Rally Finland, after earlier driving his Citroën C2 S1600 to victory in Cyprus and Italy.[2] He finished 2nd in PWRC 2009 standings after Armindo Araujo.
In 2010, Prokop switched to SWRC with Ford Fiesta S2000. He is first driver who won special stage of WRC rally with s2000 car, it was SS16 at 2010 Rally Sweden. Prokop had stronge results during the season 3rd at Rally Sweden, 2nd at Rally Mexico, Rallye Deutschland and Rally Japan. Prokop had chances to become SWRC champion at Rallye de France, but because of his problems with power steering he was losing time every stage and finished 6th.
Racing record[link]
WRC results[link]
| Year | Entrant | Car | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | WDC | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | Martin Prokop | Suzuki Ignis S1600 | MON 21 |
SWE | MEX | NZL | ITA 24 |
CYP | TUR | GRE 27 |
ARG | FIN 36 |
GER Ret |
GBR Ret |
JPN | FRA 22 |
ESP 22 |
AUS | NC | 0 |
| 2006 | Martin Prokop | Citroën C2 S1600 | MON 20 |
SWE 45 |
MEX | ESP 17 |
FRA 20 |
ARG | ITA 37 |
GRE | GER 22 |
FIN 35 |
JPN | CYP | TUR 21 |
AUS | NZL | GBR 25 |
NC | 0 |
| 2007 | Martin Prokop | Citroën C2 S1600 | MON 20 |
NOR | MEX | POR Ret |
ARG | ITA 16 |
FIN Ret |
GER 11 |
NZL | ESP 17 |
FRA 17 |
JPN | IRE | NC | 0 | |||
| Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX | SWE Ret |
GRE 20 |
GBR 20 |
|||||||||||||||||
| 2008 | Martin Prokop | Citroën C2 S1600 | MEX 22 |
ITA 30 |
FIN 20 |
GER Ret |
ESP 16 |
FRA 19 |
JPN | NC | 0 | |||||||||
| Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX | MON | SWE 12 |
ARG 15 |
JOR | GRE 34 |
TUR DSQ |
NZL 10 |
GBR Ret |
||||||||||||
| 2009 | Martin Prokop | Citroën C2 S1600 | IRE 17 |
CYP 14 |
ITA 12 |
POL 12 |
FIN 14 |
ESP Ret |
NC | 0 | ||||||||||
| Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX | NOR 15 |
POR 10 |
ARG DSQ |
GRE 12 |
AUS 10 |
GBR 10 |
||||||||||||||
| 2010 | Czech Ford National Team | Ford Fiesta S2000 | SWE 14 |
MEX 9 |
JOR | TUR | NZL 11 |
POR | BUL | FIN 13 |
GER 11 |
FRA 21 |
ESP | GBR | 18th | 3 | ||||
| Barwa Rally Team | JPN 10 |
|||||||||||||||||||
| 2011 | Czech Ford National Team | Ford Fiesta S2000 | SWE 12 |
MEX 7 |
POR | JOR | ITA 10 |
ARG | GRE 15 |
FIN 12 |
GER 30 |
AUS | FRA 14 |
ESP 13 |
19th | 7 | ||||
| Ford Fiesta RS WRC | GBR 22 |
|||||||||||||||||||
| 2012 | Czech Ford National Team | Ford Fiesta RS WRC | MON 9 |
SWE 9 |
MEX | POR 5 |
GRE 5 |
NZL | FIN | GER | GBR | FRA | ITA | ESP | 7th* | 36* | ||||
| Autotek Motorsport | ARG 4 |
* Season in progress.
JWRC results[link]
| Year | Entrant | Car | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | JWRC | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | Martin Prokop | Suzuki Ignis S1600 | MON 9 |
MEX | ITA 7 |
GRE 7 |
FIN 6 |
GER Ret |
FRA 7 |
ESP 5 |
9th | 13 | |
| 2006 | Martin Prokop | Citroën C2 S1600 | SWE 11 |
ESP 1 |
FRA | ARG | ITA 11 |
GER 5 |
FIN 8 |
TUR 6 |
GBR | 10th | 18 |
| 2007 | Martin Prokop | Citroën C2 S1600 | NOR | POR Ret |
ITA 3 |
FIN Ret |
GER 1 |
ESP 2 |
FRA 1 |
3rd | 34 | ||
| 2008 | Martin Prokop | Citroën C2 S1600 | MEX 7 |
JOR | ITA 10 |
FIN 1 |
GER Ret |
ESP 1 |
FRA 1 |
3rd | 32 | ||
| 2009 | Martin Prokop | Citroën C2 S1600 | IRE 2 |
CYP 1 |
POR | ARG | ITA 1 |
POL 2 |
FIN 1 |
ESP Ret |
1st | 42 |
PWRC results[link]
| Year | Entrant | Car | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | PWRC | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | Martin Prokop | Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX | SWE Ret |
MEX | ARG | GRE | NZL | JPN | IRE | GBR | NC | 0 |
| 2008 | Martin Prokop | Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX | SWE 4 |
ARG 7 |
GRE 14 |
TUR DSQ |
FIN | NZL 1 |
JAP | GBR Ret |
5th | 17 |
| 2009 | Martin Prokop | Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX | NOR 3 |
CYP | POR 2 |
ARG DSQ |
ITA | GRE 4 |
AUS 1 |
GBR 1 |
2nd | 39 |
SWRC results[link]
| Year | Entrant | Car | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | SWRC | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | Czech Ford National Team | Ford Fiesta S2000 | SWE 3 |
MEX 2 |
JOR | NZL 3 |
POR | FIN 4 |
GER 2 |
FRA 6 |
GBR | 3rd | 104 | |
| Barwa Rally Team | JPN 2 |
|||||||||||||
| 2011 | Czech Ford National Team | Ford Fiesta S2000 | MEX 1 |
JOR | ITA 3 |
GRE 5 |
FIN 2 |
GER 6 |
FRA 3 |
ESP 3 |
3rd | 106 |
IRC results[link]
| Year | Entrant | Car | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | WDC | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 |  BF Goodrich Drivers Team |
Peugeot 207 S2000 | MON | BRA | KEN | POR | BEL | RUS | POR | CZE 5 |
ESP | ITA | SCO | 27th | 4 | |
| 2010 | Czech Ford Rally Team |
Ford Fiesta S2000 | MON | BRA | ARG | CAN | ITA | BEL | AZO | MAD | CZE | ITA | SCO | CYP 3 |
13th | 6 |
References[link]
- ^ "Driver profile - Martin Prokop". eWRC-results.com. http://www.ewrc-results.com/profile.php?profile=17. Retrieved 5 August 2009.
- ^ "Prokop wins J-WRC title with Finnish victory". Rally-Live.com. 2 August 2009. http://www.rally-live.com/en/wrc/headlines/news/detail/090802194632.shtml. Retrieved 5 August 2009.
External links[link]
|
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Martin Prokop |
| Sporting positions | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Sébastien Ogier |
Junior World Rally Champion 2009 |
Succeeded by Aaron Burkart |
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Prokop, Martin |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | |
| Date of birth | 4 October 1982 |
| Place of birth | |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
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This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
